


The Perfect Suitor

by aelangreenleaf



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Drama, F/M, Gen, Humor, Romance, okay it was humor but now it became drama and it seems to be staying that way
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-02-20
Updated: 2012-10-11
Packaged: 2017-10-31 11:21:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 28,685
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/343499
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aelangreenleaf/pseuds/aelangreenleaf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She bursts through the door of the flat, her face flushed and her eyes wide, in a complete state of panic. "You have to hide!" - Molly's mother comes for an unexpected visit. Sherlock comes up with an inventive way to explain his presence. (Post-TRF).</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. An Unexpected Visitor

**Author's Note:**

> I write way too much angst - so here's some fun stuff! Takes place post-TRF; assumes that Sherlock has been hiding out at Molly's flat.
> 
> EDIT: I like this little arrangement. I may write more. :)

 

She bursts through the door of the flat, her face flushed and her eyes wide, in a complete state of panic. "You have to  _hide_!" she exclaims, her eyes locked on the man across the room.

He looks up at her, almost languidly. "What's that, Molly?"

She crosses the room to him and grabs him arm, attempting to tug him up onto his feet. " _Sherlock!_ " she hisses, straining to get him to move. "You can't been seen! You're dead!"

He stares at her for a moment, taking his time, and she wants nothing more than to slap him in his oh-so-handsome face. Finally, he lets her win the tug-of-war over his arm, and gets to his feet. "For what reason would I need to hide?" he asks her, arching an eyebrow as he looks down into her flustered and panicked face.

"My  _mother_  is on her way up!" she squeaks, eyes darting back to look at the door. "She always does this, always shows up unannounced… really, you would think she'd tell me when she was on her way, but no, no, every bloody time…" she continues, babbling wildly, the words tumbling from her lips even as she's pushing on Sherlock's back, driving him back towards her bedroom.

He lets himself be directed by her, mostly out of amusement. He'd never seen Molly Hooper behave this way, completely undone. It was, by far, the most interesting thing that had happened to him in days (if not weeks), aside from the last paternity test episode of that trashy talk show that he never bothered to remember the name of.

She gives him a final shove as they get to the doorway, and he smiles at her movement, utterly fascinated by her current state. Molly Hooper has never touched him in her life, and here she is, manhandling him as if he was one of her specimens in her lab, something to be directed and controlled. T he elder Mrs. Hooper must be a character of her own, to make the normally shy and mousy Ms. Hooper act in this particular way.

"Stay in here and  _be quiet!_ " she hisses at him, poking him in the chest with her index finger, her eyes wide with anxiety. "I'll try to get her out of her as fast as I can."

And then the door slams in his face just as he hears the voice of another person echo through the sitting room.

* * *

Sometimes, Molly Hooper really dislikes her mother.

To be clear, she loved her, loved her like any daughter loves her mother, especially a daughter who'd lost her father years ago. But Madeleine Hooper was not like every other mother, the little ladies who'd bake cookies and braid their daughters' hair. Madeleine Hooper was the antithesis of Molly Hooper, a confident and proud woman, a woman who'd fought for a life better than the one of a pig farmer's daughter, leaving the West Country behind for London and all the promises the city held.

Where Molly was quiet and unassuming, Madeleine was loud and commanded the attention of everyone in the room. Where Molly was plain and stylistically uncoordinated, her mother had the timeless beauty of a silent film starlet, her clothes always perfectly tailored and in vogue. When they stood side by side, one was hard pressed to find the resemblance between these polar opposites, two sides on a coin.

And now she was here, standing in her flat, looking completely out of place amongst Molly's knick knacks and cheap furniture.

"Really, Molly, you must look into replacing this old sofa, you have the money for it now, use it," the older woman is saying, slipping off her coat and taking a seat in the chair opposite the couch. She looks up at her daughter; head perched to the side slightly, silently expectant. "Put the kettle on, would you?"

Molly grits her teeth and makes a tactical retreat to the kitchen, steeling herself mentally for what awaited her in the sitting room upon her return.

She passes her mother a cup of warm Earl Grey as she comes back, seating herself on her old and apparently outdated sofa across from her visitor. She takes a sip of her tea as her mother continues to blather on, reporting to her the newest happenings in the lives of their shared family, friends, and acquaintances. (" _Moira's just gotten engaged to that Littleton fellow, you know, the one you fancied in sixth form, Molly, the dark haired one"_ ) _._  She nods at the appropriate times, grimaces when she's supposed to, all while hoping and praying that she'll be able to hustle them both out of here before Sherlock Holmes gets bored and wanders out to fulfil his own curiosity.

"… you really must start meeting more men, Molly, you're not getting younger," her mother is saying, when she finally tunes back in.

Ah, this again. Molly swallows a sigh. "Ah, well, you know Mum, been really busy at work -"

Her mother raises an eyebrow at her. "Molly, dear, that's no excuse. I met your father while articling – it is certainly possible to balance both. And really, dear, you must let me take you out to the shops again, no man is going to be able to appreciate your figure when you wear such frumpy attire," she says, gesturing to the baggy brown slacks and shapeless beige blouse that Molly had happened to throw on today.

"Well-" Molly starts weakly, but Madeleine cuts her off again.

"Perhaps internet dating? I've heard that it can be a bit awkward, but really Molly, at your age you can't afford to be fussy. You really need to start thinking about settling down, it'll only get harder and harder as the years pass, you're not getting any youn-" she is saying, those dreadful words all women hate to hear, but the sound of door opening cuts her short.

Her mother looks over at her, her look inquisitive. "Do you have another guest, Molly?"

Molly's heart is beating so hard she could swear it was carving a hole in her chest. "I-uh-" she stutters, unable to breathe normally.

And that's when another figure steps into the room. "Good afternoon," he says cheerfully, stepping fully into the sitting room. He strides over to her mother in five quick steps, reaching out his hand in greeting. "I apologize for not greeting you earlier, Mrs. Hooper; night shift at the hospital, just had to catch a few winks," he says, smiling winningly down at the woman before him. "Molly was kind enough to let me sleep," he continues, looking back at Molly with a smile on his face and in his eyes.

Molly gapes at him, completely taken by surprise. He's put some sort of a wig on, a convincing one at that – a closely cropped blond affair, covering up his distinct black locks. He's found a pair of horn-rimmed glasses somewhere, the type you see on those sharply dressed youths, and he's even put on a suit, black pants and jacket complementing his lavender shirt quite expertly. In short – he looks exactly like the type of man her mother has always pushed on her, and she can't quite believe that he's decided to interject himself into this game.

Her mother doesn't notice her daughter's surprise, too caught up in the appearance of this new arrival. "Molly didn't tell me she had… someone over," she says, extending her hand to meet Sherlock's.

"Probably just letting me sleep, the sweetheart" he replies, clasping his other hand over their two joined ones as he shakes it. "I'm Edmund," he tells her, as he lets go of her hand, "Dr. Edmund Mortimer."

Her mother's eyebrows both climb upwards at the mention of his title. "A doctor? Did you meet at work, then?"

Sherlock –  _Edmund?_  – takes a seat next to Molly on the sofa, pressed close up against her, and she swears if her heart beat any faster she might explode. "We did, in fact –" he tells her, reaching out to grab one of Molly's hands. "One of those  _office romances_ ," he finishes, grinning, and Molly knows he's mimicking her own past words when he says them.

"Molly hadn't mentioned any… suitors," Madeleine replies, looking over to her silent daughter, who was trying very hard not to look like a deer caught in the headlights.

"Oh, uh – well-" she starts dumbly, seemingly unable to form words.

Sherlock cuts her off with another of those blazing smiles. "It's still fairly new for us both," he explains, rubbing the back of Molly's hand with his fingers, and it's all Molly can do not to die from a fatal combination of utter embarrassment and selfish pleasure. "We haven't really told anyone yet."

Her mother looks over to Molly, and back to Sherlock again. "I realize I may have interrupted your plans for the day," Madeleine begins, her tone almost questioning.

"Oh, no, not at all, Mrs. Hooper," he answers, "What could be more important than spending time with one's family?"

Molly honestly can't believe how good he is at this, how believable. She always knew that he was a good actor, but this – this truly deserved anAcademy Award for his performance.

Her mother smiled back at the detective. "Please, Edmund, call me Madeleine."

He nods his head in acknowledgement, deferentially. "With pleasure, Madeleine."

They sit quietly for a few moments, the bombshell of this blond-haired, well-dressed doctor having swept both Molly and her mother into silence.

"Well," starts the older woman eventually, making to stand up from her chair. "Perhaps we should let you sleep, Edmund. Molly – lunch at the café? I think we have a few… items to discuss."

Molly shakes herself out of her stupor, pushing herself up to her feet as well, her hand dropping out of Sherlock's grasp. "Y-yes, yes of course."

Madeleine moves to pick up her coat, but Sherlock beats her to it, holding it out for her as she slips her arms into it. "You're welcome to join us, Edmund, if you'd like," she tells him, smiling up at him as he lets go of the coat lapels.

"I appreciate the invite, Madeleine, but I'll let the two of you have your catch-up alone – this time," he replies, his eyes twinkling.

 _Honestly, how does he do that?_  Molly thinks to herself, reaching out to grab her jacket as well, but Sherlock, again, is there in an instant, helping her to put it on, the perfect image of a gentleman. Her skin tingles as she feels his body behind her, and she tries in vain to bury those emotions, those tantalizing feelings.

"It was a pleasure to meet you," he is saying, kissing her mother quickly on each cheek. Molly swears she can see the edges of her mother's earlobes flush red at the contact, and she stifles a giggle at her mother's expense.

"You as well, Edmund. I hope to see you again."

Molly looks over to her mother, and sees her staring back at her, somewhat expectant.  _Oh!_  Molly thinks, realizing that a normal girlfriend would most likely want to say goodbye.

She turns to Sherlock, uncertain. "S-see you later, Edmund," she says softly, looking up to meet his eyes.

He looks back down at her, and his gaze locks with hers. "Until later, Molly," he replies, and he dips his chin down parallel to hers, his lips moving to meet hers, his mouth connecting with her mouth in a picture-perfect kiss. She closes her eyes at the contact, her breath hitching in her throat as they connect, and she has to stop herself from reaching out for more when he pulls away.

"Have a good time," he says, stepping away, and her legs carry her away mostly on auto-pilot, still too astounded to really think at all.

* * *

At lunch, her mother goes on and on about how she should have told her about Edmund, about how nice of a man he was, about how lucky she was to have him, and on and on. But Molly doesn't hear a single word she says, too caught up in her own thoughts, replaying that kiss, that one fleeting kiss over and over in her memory, like the last few moments of a beautiful dream.


	2. A Cordial Invitation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay! Hello there everyone who has decided to click on Chapter Two! Thank you so much for all your kind reviews, you don't know how much I appreciate them.
> 
> I can't just let this story line end where I left it in the first chapter - so this one-shot has now become a multi-chaptered event! Hope you enjoy!

**  
**

* * *

"Molly!" he calls out from his spot in the living room, frustration coursing through his voice.

He's been calling after her for a good five minutes now; he knows she's in her bedroom, and has been for the past half hour. Doesn't she understand that he needs her to bring him the fingers from the beaker in the refrigerator?  _Why on earth won't she answer?_

Finally too annoyed to deal with his impatience at her non-response any longer, he stands up in one fluid motion and moves towards the bedroom, stepping onto the coffee table, even more annoyed that the furniture had the nerve to get in his way. He brushes his hair back and forth angrily; doesn't she know how  _important_  this experiment is? The rate of decomposition of human skin in specific liquids is of great interest to him; god knows when (and it is a most definite  _when_ ) he returns to his former career, the knowledge obtained from these experiments will only serve to improve his techniques.

He bursts through the threshold, shoving open the door with the palm of his hand, and glares down at Molly Hooper –

Who is lying flat on her back, eyes closed in consternation as she holds her mobile up to her right ear, nodding periodically in silent response to someone on the other end of the line.

He stops for a moment, taking in the sight.  _Interesting_ , he thinks to himself, and then proceeds to analyse the situation before him. Tension in the shoulders, consternation and frustration in the facial features, nervous tapping of her left fingers along the side of her hip –  _very interesting, indeed_. He comes up to the side of the bed, where a discarded piece of paper is resting near the edge of her right foot. No, not a just a piece of paper – a wedding invitation.

_You are cordially invited_

_To celebrate with Ms. Moira Davis & Mr. Harold Littleton_

_As they join together in holy matrimony..._

The invitation itself was all pink with cream undertones, a little bow tied in the top corner, with just a splash of something… l _avender_  on top of it all. There are dates mentioned, and a little tacky RSVP card, with a little empty space next to where the name of Molly's chosen guest would go. He grimaces at it, at the conventionality and conformity of it all, but then a clever little idea pops into his head, as he realizes just who Molly must be talking to.

He leans forward then, looming over the dejected little pathologist, and snatches the phone right out of her grasp. Her eyes fly open and she gasps at his sudden movement, pushing herself up on her elbows in complete and utter surprise.

"What are you  _doing_?" she hisses at him, but he shushes her with a snap of his fingers, and she falls mute, mostly out of shock.

He grins to himself as he places the phone against his ear. "Hello?" he calls out, affecting a much more chipper voice than his usual self (wouldn't John be impressed?). "Madeleine, is that you?"

There is pause at the other end, then a quick recovery. "Edmund!" replies the elder Hooper, thinly veiled surprise evident in her tones. "Molly hadn't mentioned that you were… around."

He glances down at the doctor beside him. She shifts her eyes away, not quite meeting his gaze. Sherlock smirks to himself, realizing that Molly had probably let her mother come to the gradual assumption that her daughter and that 'nice fellow' had split up. "She must be simply trying to keep you all to herself," he says jovially, and the expression of incredulity on Molly's face towards his feigned sycophantism makes him want to laugh out loud.

But he can't – he has a part to play, and a delicious one at that. "I'm really looking forward to attending the wedding, Madeleine – I can't believe that it's coming up this weekend already."

"So you will be joining us then?" Molly's mother answers over the line, joyful surprise evident in her voice.

He looks down at Molly, meeting her dead in the eyes, and then winking at her, almost brutally. "Wouldn't miss it for the world, Madeleine."

* * *

Molly is not entirely sure what to think about her current situation.

As she watches Sherlock speak to her mother (her  _mother!_ ) over the phone, she can't help but think that about the fact that this is a major, major mistake. It was one thing for him to have faked being her boyfriend on that one occasion several months ago in order to (among other things) help her save face in front of her mother, but for him to venture out with her into the public, out of London, for a  _wedding_? Absolutely out of the question.

And then he's winking at her –  _winking!_  – as he tells her mother goodbye, flipping her mobile shut as he tosses it down on the bed beside her.

"A-are you  _crazy?_ " she exclaims, bringing her knees up to her chest as she hugs them close.  _What is he thinking? What is he playing at? Oh dear god…_

"Oh, come now, Molly. Everything will be fine. My disguise will be perfect, I assure you. And what great fun! Weddings truly are the greatest social event to attend, if one must attend social events," he tells her authoritatively, bringing his fingers up to his mouth and grinning madly to himself in eager anticipation. "That's when you get all the fun! All the drama – everyone is so deliciously devious at weddings. Does the bride know the groom's been stealing money from her? Does the best man know his girlfriend's shagged the groom's sister? Does the organist know the priest's got a wife up north that he just hasn't told her about? All fun little facts to glean, little tiny puzzles to put together," he tells her, his eyes lighting up at the mere prospect.

She tips her face down into her hands and groans.

He looks down at her and frowns. "What, Molly?"

She mumbles her response straight into her palms, and she swears she can  _hear_  him roll his eyes in frustration.

"Out with it, Molly," he commands, using his  _I'm the detective here, and you'd better listen_ , voice.

She pulls back up and looks over to him. "Why are you doing this?" she asks him, almost plaintively.

He cocks his head to the side, as if confused that she doesn't already know the answer. "For several reasons, Molly, I thought that would be obvious. Firstly, I have been cooped up in this hellish, hermetically sealed environment for nearly four months now, save for the occasional twilight escapade that I have undertaken whenever you fall asleep watching  _X Factor_."

She opens her mouth to respond, indignant, but he ignores her and continues talking.

"Secondly, I have grown even more bored than usual. I cannot, for obvious reasons, take on any cases while in my current situation. The fare on the midday television menu has become grotesquely repetitive, and I simply cannot stomach any of it, any more. My experiments, while intellectually engaging, can only take up so much of my time. And you, Molly, are simply too boring to remedy my current state of boredom."

She knows that from anyone else she might find that offensive, but from Sherlock, it's probably about the most neutral of a statement she's heard from him in regards to herself in a very long time.

"Finally, Molly," he says, quite nearly patronizingly, "you are in need of a date. Preferably, a male date. Even more preferably, a male date that might impress the other guests of this wedding, guests that will presumably include old friends, distant relatives, and past schoolmates. I feel that my past performance can attest to my skills in this arena, and rest assuredly, my repertoire of dance skills are certainly up to par."

He looks at her then, expectantly, and she realizes that he's waiting for her to say yes, to acquiesce to this absolutely insane plan. Doesn't he know that he's supposed to be  _dead_? Doesn't he know that just his leaving the house will attract exactly the type of attention that they've been trying so hard for him to avoid?

But then she thinks (stupidly) about how good he looked in that lavender shirt, and how well he did with her mother, and how much Penny Pritchard would be  _so_  jealous of her now, with a posh doctor boyfriend on her arm…

So she meets his gaze then, and against all better judgement and against all rational thought, she opens her mouth and tells him just one word:

"Okay."


	3. A Man on a Train

 

He's been debating what kind of man he is for several days.

Well, what kind of man Edmund Mortimer is, to be precise. It's been so deliciously entertaining, developing a back story for him – a lot more entertaining than watching the morning shows on the telly or reading any of Molly's selection of inane and grossly inaccurate romance novels (she'd hidden them quite well, but he'd found them in the end).

Dr. Edmund Mortimer is an orthopaedic surgeon at St. Bartholomew's Hospital, and has been for nearly three years. He trained at University College of London, and before that Manchester, with a brief sojourn abroad in the United States. He is a man who loves tennis, a good pint at the pub, and is oh-so-very-fond of his paramour, the lovely Molly Hooper. All in all, a remarkably ordinary man, a man that Sherlock Holmes would never, could never be.

And won't it be such a fun role – a fun  _game_  – to play?

He grins to himself, and finishes adjusting his tie, a strange addition for Sherlock Holmes, but a completely ordinary accessory for Dr. Edmund Mortimer.

He emerges from Molly's bedroom (she had commandeered the lavatory for her own preparations), and steps into the kitchen. He is very nearly giddy with excitement, which does worry him slightly – there isn't any blood or theft or murder in sight – but he chalks it up to sheer and utter boredom, with this wedding the first exciting thing to happen to him in a very, very long time.

He taps his foot impatiently on the tiled floor, and looks up at the clock. Half past ten. How bloody long does it take a woman to get ready?

He yells this exact thought across the flat in the direction of the lavatory, and he can hear Molly's muffled voice through the door, before he hears the click of the latch and her footsteps moving towards him. She moves into the kitchen slowly, almost warily, as if afraid to face him.

He frowns. Why on earth would she be hesitant to face him? And then a flash of memory comes back to him, of the moments at Christmas when he'd torn her appearance apart, and he experiences a mild tinge of... something before he comes to his senses and pushes those memories away.

"You look lovely, Molly," he tells her, and objectively, it is quite true. She'd forgone the tawdry earrings and sparkly accessories that she'd worn previously, and opted instead for an A-line dress in a soft reddish hue, elegant in its simplicity. He knew instantly that her mother must have selected it for her, but Molly must have at least liked it enough in her own right to put it on of her own accord. She looked... nice, he supposed.

"T-thank you," she half-stutters in reply, and he can see the surprise in her eyes at the compliment, the relief that he hadn't immediately verbally destroyed what confidence she'd managed to pull together. Really, is that what she thought of him? He is tempted to frown once more, but overrides the impulse and opts for a dazzling smile instead, practicing for the many that he'd have to affect as the affable but plain Edmund Mortimer. He'd just have to prove it to her, wouldn't he, prove to her that even  _he_  can play the doting and devoted type.

"Shall we?" he asks her, his eyes meeting with hers as he extends an arm outwards, and she smiles up at him, just a little, as she hooks her arm through his, heading for the door.

 

* * *

She still can't shake this feeling that this is a bad idea.

No, not just a bad idea – a  _terrible_ idea. How on  _earth_  could it not be? Not only is she letting a man who is supposed to be dead to roam (somewhat) freely in society, but she is  _bringing him to a wedding_. Granted, he looks nothing like Sherlock Holmes at the moment – dressed in a beautiful dark suit with an elegant skinny tie, he looked the epitome of modern fashion, a well-dressed man on his way to a well-dressed event. He'd put on that blond wig again, tucking away his black locks like they were never there at all. The biggest change, however, was the fact that he'd let his facial hair grow in slightly – facial hair that she'd never even suspected that he'd had (she'd always imagined him as a remarkably smooth fellow, save for the unruly locks on his head).

Even right now, sitting across from him on the train, she has a hard time reconciling the man in front of her with the man she's known for nearly five years. He just...  _carries_  himself so differently than Sherlock Holmes. It's like he's shucked off his own skin and taken over someone else's, someone who reads  _The Guardian_  for social reasons alone, someone who smiles at strangers, someone who seems to know what it is like to feel – and feel freely – happiness and lust and love.

"Molly," he says softly, not looking up from his paper.

"Yes?" she answers quickly, shifting her eyes back up to his face.

"You've been staring at me for the past eight minutes. May I help you with something?" he asks, flipping to the next page.

She blushes intensely, the redness flowing across her cheeks and the lobes of her ears. Of course he'd noticed – he may not look like Sherlock Holmes, but he still  _is_  Sherlock Holmes.

He sighs. "Out with it, Molly."

"Have you ever been to a wedding before?" she blurts out. She's been wondering about that for ages, wondering if he even really knew what went on at weddings, at least from a hands-on perspective.

He lifts his eyes up from the broadsheet then, and carefully folds it in half, tucking it away between his leg and the side of the train car. "Yes," he answers, and she breathes a sigh of relief.

"I was the groom, once," he adds, almost as an after-thought.

Molly quite literally chokes on her own breath.

He continues speaking as if she wasn't sputtering and trying to regain her composure, looking out beyond the confines of the train and towards the countryside speeding by beyond. "It was for a case, several years ago. There was suspicion of embezzlement between two closely linked families, and several unsubstantiated claims of forgery. In order to gain access to the family under suspicion, I courted the youngest daughter under the guise of a mail clerk from the next town. She was very traditional, so I knew if I proposed marriage, I would be brought into the family fold, privy to things that I had not been able to gain access to before. Unfortunately, her father had sped the wedding plans right along, and before I knew it I was standing in a church waiting to be wed."

Molly can feel herself gaping at him, and she hurriedly snaps her mouth shut. "W-what happened?" she asks, almost breathless.

He looks back to her, almost distractedly. "What? Oh, the wedding. Her great-uncle and second cousin were at the forefront of the embezzlement scheme; I confronted them about it on my way up to the altar."

"So... no wedding then?"

He blinks at her. "No."

She leans back then, resting up against the back of her seat. Sherlock Holmes, a groom? Well, no, not really – he was a postal worker from a country town when he'd gotten down on one knee and proposed – but still! She can't ever imagine him doing that, let alone actually following through.

"Molly," he is saying, and she realizes that she'd gone off into a world of her own there, for a moment – a strange, dreamlike world where Sherlock was dressed in a tuxedo, standing up at the altar in a church, smiling brightly down at her as she walks up the aisle, dressed all in white...

 _Get a hold of yourself, Molly!_  she scolds herself internally, and refocuses her attention on the man in front of her.

"I rarely act a part with someone else involved, so it is  _imperative_  that we get our story straight. Do you understand me?" he is telling her, his eyes looking ever so stern, locked onto her own.

She nods.

"Good," he replies, and his look softens as he leans back in his own seat. "We've been dating five months. We met at the hospital – I came down one evening to the morgue to collect some anecdotal data on a peculiar specimen that you'd processed, and it was –" he waves his hands about sarcastically, "love at first sight. Coffees, dinners, the whole kit – and here we are."

"Here we are..." she echoes, trying very hard not to imagine all those scenarios in her mind. Coffee with Sherlock... Dinner with Sherlock... A first kiss with Sherlock... Well, the last one she'd gotten, but that hadn't really counted, had it? It couldn't really be a first kiss if there was never going to be any to follow.

"One more thing, Molly," he says, and he leans forward, forward across the divide between them, and her body is mimicking his, leaning in as well., and she can feel his breath on her cheek as he lines up to whisper something in her ear.

"I'm not Sherlock. I'm Edmund Mortimer. Remember that. I'm your date, your paramour – do try to act accordingly," he murmurs , his voice like an electric current through her veins.

He leans back then, winking at her conspiratorially, and she fights for the rest of the train ride to keep her heart rate and her breathing under control. And that's the real reason this is such a dangerous game, isn't it now? Because while he's just playing a part, toying with a role, with a fake persona – she's getting dangerously close to playing with her heart...


	4. A Trip to the Sea

He's never been all that fond of the sea.

Well, to be honest, he quite frankly hates the sea, hates it with an all-consuming passion. As with most unpleasant things in his life, this can be attributed to Mycroft, who had effectively ruined all salt water bodies for him until the end of time. When they were boys, they'd gone to their grandmother's country home in Normandy, and on one sunny afternoon their cousin had taken them out to the coast to swim in the sea. Mycroft, characteristically conniving, had convinced him that in salt water one  _had_ breathe in, unlike the fresh water in their pool at home. So he, still moderately unaware of his brother's penchant for cruel mischief, had done as told – and had promptly required a rescue from some German tourist who had plunged in after observing the flailing, choking form of a certain pale and skinny English boy.

The worst of it was that his cousin had been flirting with a local girl at the time, and so Mycroft hadn't even been punished – he'd just grinned like a Cheshire cat behind their parents' backs when Sherlock had tried – and failed – to convince his mother and father of his sibling's culpability in the matter.

No lost love for the sea – or Mycroft – on his part, then.

However, as they exit the station in Brighton and look for a cab to hail, he can't help but think that there is a certain something about the sea air, about the breeze that comes up off of the water and floats across the land, that is quite refreshing, especially when one has been cooped up in a dollhouse-sized flat in the middle of London. He breathes in deeply and closes his eyes briefly, simply taking it all in.

"A-are you alright?" a timid voice asks from his left side, and he snaps his eyes back open to look down at a concerned-looking Molly Hooper standing next to him on the pavement.

"Taking in the sea breeze, Molly!" he tells her, affecting yet another one of his Edmund-esque grins (they were getting easier and easier to stomach, he noticed, as time wore on). He raises a hand and snaps his fingers, catching the attention of a nearby parked cab.

The vehicle swings around to them, and he opens the door for Molly, who looks flustered for a mere moment before sliding inside. He joins her from the opposite side, instructing the driver to take them to St. Peter's, their final destination.

They ride in silence, the journey made uncharacteristically long due to some sort of traffic issue ahead of them, most likely due to ogling tourists incapable of driving and ogling at the same time. He raps his fingers on the edge of the window, keeping time with the tune over the radio.

"Uh – Edmund?" Molly says softly, and he is impressed that he didn't have to remind her about the names.

He turns to her, his eyes meeting her brown ones. "Yes?"

"In – uh – in your  _past_  life, were you actually fond of... illegal substances?" she asks, out of the blue.

He frowns. "Where did you hear that?"

She blushes, and looks away. "I read it in Kitty Reilly's exposé – the one that was released the same day as... as the  _incident_."

He frowns some more. "And why are you asking me this now?"

She looks back up, meeting his gaze once more. "It's just – there'll be wine and champagne and spirits at the wedding, you know, and I didn't – I didn't want to put you in an uncomfortable position, just in case," she finishes, her voice trailing off softly, her cheeks just slightly flushed.

His expression softens as he looks down to her. "Ah, yes. Don't fret, Molly – alcohol was never one of my vices. Nor Edmund's, for that matter."

He is interrupted by the sudden cessation of the vehicle's movement, and he redirects his attention to look out the window and to the church beyond. "Come now, Molly," he tells her, holding open the door and she scoots over to his side and slides out into the sunshine. He passes the driver a couple notes before closing the cab door and straightening up, taking in his surroundings. Plenty of people, plenty of activity – all in all, looking quite good so far.

Today is going to be the most fun he'd had in a long, long time.

* * *

From the moment she steps out from the cab, she is nervous.

_Why did I **ever**  think that this was a good idea?_ she thinks to herself, as she straightens out the hem of her dress and pulls her cardigan tight around her. The Sherlock-Holmes-is-secretly-my-date issue aside, it had been nearly a decade since she'd seen some of these people that would be attending this wedding. Many of them had the children of her mother's colleagues and clients, and still others had been with her at university (the two social groups tended to overlap in composition considerably). She'd never really, truly been a part of their crowd – she had always been too quiet, too uncoordinated, too timid to fit in. How could she compete with them, with their beautiful looks and tailored clothes and confidence, oh, such confidence.

So she'd avoided events like these for a decade. Not because she was embarrassed about the course of her life so far – she'd made her way through a first degree, and then medical school, and then training as a forensic pathologist, thank you very much – but because she knew the minute she was around them again she'd be reduced to that nervous and stuttering teenager she'd once been, years and years ago.

And, she supposed, as she snuck a quick look up at the man standing beside her, she'd never had any... company like she did this time, nevertheless the  _quality_  of the current company next to her.

"Molly?" she hears a voice call out, clipped and polished, and it takes all of her self control not to groan aloud.

A figure moves towards them, a young woman clad in a brilliant emerald dress, hanging off of one shoulder, showcasing the elegant structure of her toned and fit body, as is the wearer's very conscious intention. She'd been this way since they were girls in sixth form, constantly needing to be the center of attention (and Molly frankly wouldn't be surprised if she tried to somehow get the focus off of the bride and onto  _her_ ).

The woman stops in front of them, her blue eyes shining as she takes in the sight of Molly Hooper and her surprising  _male_  guest.

"Such a pleasure to see you, Molly," she is saying, leaning forward to kiss her lightly on each cheek. "And who is  _this_?" she asks, one eyebrow rising up as she takes in the man standing beside her.

Really, Molly is quite impressed with her own inner resolve, keeping in the sigh that was just dying to escape. "Beatrice Holding, this is Edmund Mortimer," she answers, placing her hand lightly on Sherlock's arm.

And then he's grinning again, that bright and powerful grin, as if grinning was the most natural thing for him in the whole world. "A pleasure to meet you, Ms. Holding," he tells her, tipping his head slightly in her direction. "Molly didn't mention how lovely her friends were," he adds, stealing a look back at Molly over her shoulder.

The other woman laughs daintily, that annoying tinkle of a laugh that Molly's always hated, that type of laugh that is made only to seduce men and not to actually convey amusement. "Please, Edmund, call me Bea."

"Bea," he repeats with that same smile, but at the same time he's reaching over to the hand that Molly's placed on his arm, and he's looping it through his own, hooking her hand over his wrist. "We'd better get inside before all the best seats are spoken for, shouldn't we Molly?" he says, his eyes meeting hers.

"Oh-oh yes!" she replies, still not used to the sensation of Sherlock Holmes touching her arm, her skin, her body –  _no, no, not Sherlock Holmes, Edmund Mortimer_ , she reminds herself. She has to remember that, above all else. Otherwise god knows what those thoughts might to do to her poor, poor heart...

"See you at the reception, Bea?" he tells her as he walks past, still smiling down at her.

"Most definitely," the other woman answers, and Molly swears that she sees her wink at him as they move past her up the pathway. She's not quite sure how to feel about that.

She nearly jumps out of her skin when she can feel Sherlock's breath on her ear, leaning in to murmur conspiratorially as they make their way up towards the church doors. "She's dreadfully insecure," he tells her, the proximity of his deep tones sending shivers down her spine.

"How so?" she whispers back, confused. Bea Holding was possibly the most confident woman she'd ever met. Her hair was always perfect, her smile was always bright – she captured the attention of every person in the room, male or female.

She can feel him grin next to her ear. "Please, that woman screams of insecurity. The tinted eyebrows, the dyed hair, the layers of makeup – not to mention the silicon in her breasts and that surgically modified smile. And I won't even get into the fact that she's recently been dumped by not one but  _two_ men, in quick succession. Not exactly a poster child for self-esteem, there."

A giggle escapes from Molly's lips, and she quickly swallows it, feeling badly for laughing, but somewhat relieved at the same time. If Bea Holding was as human as the rest of them, maybe this wouldn't be so bad after all.

"As long as you keep those observations to yourself,  _Edmund_ ," she says softly, as they move to join the queue at the doors of the church, all in line single file, "then I think we shall be okay."

He raises an eyebrow at her. "Why on earth would I want to give the game away?" he answers, slipping a hand down to the small of her back to guide her through the door. She stifles a gasp at the sudden contact as he guides her through, before his hand drops away and they are both standing in the church side by side again.

"This is best game I've played in a long time," he finishes, with a gleam in his eye that she can't quite identify, before he strides off to find them seats amongst the pews, Molly taking a moment to compose herself before rushing after him.


	5. A Dinner with Companions

He's not quite certain why anyone would ever want, desire, or agree to getting married.

He's never even remotely come close to understanding why anyone would ever willingly enter into the (theoretically) binding agreement between themselves and another person. How did devotion and undying sentiments of  _love_  translate into a contractual obligation with legal and financial ramifications?

Not that he's particularly sold on the whole concept of love and eternal devotion, anyways. His parents had been married, had whispered words of affection between them, had committed themselves to a lifetime of fidelity and dedication, but in the end that hadn't stopped his father from running off with his business partner's wife and breaking his mother's heart. This was by no means an exceptional occurrence – every single day he sees the repeating patterns: a woman searching for answers about her cheating husband, a man convinced of his wife's unfaithfulness, a couple torn apart with the realization that they share the same mistress. And then there's the assaults, the physical manifestations of jealousy and anger and guilt, and even the murders, the acts of unbridled fury and rampant resentment, when all that  _emotion_  and  _sentiment_  drives people to plunge off into the deep end, beyond all rational thought.

Marriage – and love – were, as the overwhelming evidence would indicate, the death of reason and the destroyer of sanity, both qualities he values above all else. And yet, it continues on and on, sucking people in, fooling them and pulling the wool over their eyes, hiding the terrible truth from them.

Oh, how silly and stupid normal people could be.

They were all around him now, in the church. All around him they ooh-ed and aw-ed at the appropriate moments, whispering between each other about how "…lovely her dress is" and "…how lucky he is to have her" and "isn't the floral arrangement simply  _to die for_ " (really? death over flowers? how absurd). Luckily, Molly seemed not to care about the idle chatter, simply sitting next to him quietly, watching the events unfold with a somewhat distracted curiosity.

He dips his head to place his lips next to her ear. "Isn't her dress just  _to die for_?" he tells her wickedly, grinning into the space between their heads.

She turns to him, half-confused. "What?" she replies looking at him quizzically, before realization dawns on her. "Oh. You're being sarcastic."

He settles back into his original place. "Such a tedious affair, the actual ceremony," he informs her in a low murmur. "A financial machination, in the end. Thousands of pounds spent on overpriced decorations and half-wilting flowers. And the clothing – always a ridiculous sum that is spent on a dress that looks like a giant frilly cupcake. Simply ridiculous."

She considers this for a moment, and then nods slightly. "I agree," she says softly, and he is somewhat taken aback. He had pegged her as the hopelessly romantic type, the type of woman who had mock-ups and detailed drawings of her perfect weddings stashed away in a desk somewhere, secrets plans for a wedding to a faceless and nameless groom. He tells her this.

She blushes, and smiles. "Well, I do like the idea of weddings. But it's all just a pointless fuss, isn't it? It's not real. Not for me."

"That is remarkably defeatist of you, Molly" he tells her pointedly.

She blushes even more. "No, no th-that's not what I meant, I, uh, I just mean – the wedding isn't the marriage, that's all. That's not what counts. Not really."

He considers this a moment, and then nods. "Yes, that is true," he tells her, and he is pleasantly surprised by this. He thought Molly would be the worst kind of patron of weddings – gushing over the colour schemes and the table arrangements and the wedding party – but so far, so good.

He likes being surprised, especially from an unexpected source like the normally read-like-an-open-book Molly Hooper. Today is shaping up quite nicely, after all.

* * *

She is infinitely happy for small favours.

Not that she often gets a lot of those – in either the big or small form. But this one, this one is worth a fair bit in her books; because of her late RSVP to the wedding, she couldn't be placed with her mother and her aunt and all the rest, so she's been placed with the distant cousins of the groom, people she's happily never met before and are therefore not obligated to interact with.

They'd said a quick hello to her mother between the ceremony and the reception (with Sherlock still playing his character frightfully well – it was like watching a one-man play in front of her all the time) and then they'd proceeded to the reception hall, where she'd quickly grabbed a glass of wine to steady her ever-worsening nerves.

She'd been fine at first, good really. She'd come to terms with her current situation – AKA masquerading as a couple with man she'd been in love with for nearly three years – but as the day had wore on, as he'd continued to touch her shoulder, her back, her arm, her hand, she'd found it harder and harder to remember what those terms were after all.

And now she knows that she was horribly wrong after all. She can't really handle this, can't handle having all the things that she's ever wanted to only have them all taken away again. When they cease to be Edmund & Molly and go back to being Sherlock Holmes and Molly Hooper, she knows she won't be able to look at him without remembering how it felt to have him at her side, to have him lean in close and whisper in her ear, to have him look down at her with those bright blue eyes and grin that beautiful grin.

She is however, knocked out of her reverie by a pressure on her leg, the sensation of fingers pressing into her skin waking her back up again.

Sherlock is looking down at her expectantly, eyebrows raised, and she looks across the table to see a woman looking over at her (Elizabeth?), evidently waiting for something.

"Oh!" exclaims Molly, "I'm so sorry! Wha-what did you say?"

The woman smiles. "I was just asking after what you did for living, dear."

"I'm a- a forensic pathologist," she answers, trying hard to steadying her voice, taking another sip of wine to calm herself back down again.

"Oh my!" Elizabeth exclaims, turning to the man beside her. "Did you hear that, John? A pathologist, just like Marcy's boy."

Molly's eyes dart over to look at Sherlock at the mention of Elizabeth's husband's name, but if the vocal manifestation of his closest friend's name had any effect on Sherlock, he didn't let on.

"That's a lot of work, isn't it dear?" the older woman continues, "How many years of school did you have to do for that?"

Molly redirects her attention away from Sherlock and back to the conversation at hand. "Just over thirteen years," she tells her.

"My goodness! Well, you must have started very young, you don't look old enough to have gone to school for thirteen years!"

She blushed involuntarily at that. It was a comment that she frequently received, especially when she'd been doing her residency. All the patients she'd see would call her 'nurse', ask her to fetch the actual doctor, that sort of thing. And while she'd even gotten over the fact that no one would probably ever actually believe that she was an actual doctor, she still couldn't help the embarrassment she automatically felt when confronted with that fact.

"I would kill to have that problem," Sherlock chimes in, that damnable and enviable smile stretching across his features. Their dinner companions all laugh in unison, and Molly still has to push away the awe that surfaces when she watches him do that. How can the man who smiles and celebrates a particularly clever murder become the man who makes self-effacing jokes to charm complete strangers?

"And what do you do, son?" pipes up the husband of the last woman at the table, a somewhat stuffy looking man with a particularly well-maintained handlebar moustache.

"I am an orthopaedic surgeon, but please, don't hold that against me," he replies, eyes full of mirth.

"Quite the power couple!" says the wife of the moustached man (Portia, maybe? The wine combined with her terrible memory for names was not boding well…).

They all laugh again, and Molly, unable to think of what else to do, simply smiles.

The small talk and banter continues on throughout the dinner, with Sherlock taking over the discussion part on their end. She doesn't really trust herself to keep the story completely straight, and to be quite honest, just watching Sherlock act his part was more than enough entertainment for her. She nibbles at her food lightly, not feeling hungry for sustenance of the solid kind, and orders a few more glasses of wine (why not, it was a wedding, after all). She tunes in and out of the conversation, her eyes wandering the room to steal glances at people that she used to know, just watching the crowd.

She does, however, tune back in when the conversation turns back to their jobs.

"Which hospital do you work at, dear?" asks Elizabeth, between bites of her dessert.

"St. Bart's," replies Sherlock, having forgone his dessert and opted instead for a sifter of brandy.

"Oh!" exclaims Portia excitedly, "Stephen, that's the hospital! You know, the hospital where that detective, oh what was his name – you know, the one with the funny hat? – that's where he jumped from! Did you two hear about all of that? What a fuss it was!"

Molly nearly chokes on her cheesecake, and she can feel the blood in her veins turn to ice.

Sherlock, however, maddeningly, seems to take it all in stride. "I don't think that it was  _actually_  his hat, though…"

But the others at the table aren't listening anymore, with the two other women suddenly discussing with great enthusiasm the whole excitement of the affair, debating the ins and outs of the whole thing – the faked crimes, the actor that he'd hired, the way that he chose to commit suicide instead of dealing with the repercussions of what he'd done.

"Hold on, there, Portia, Molly here is a forensic pathologist at that hospital!" exclaims Stephen, directing his wife's attention back over to her. "Molly, did you see it all happen? Any insider details for us?"

She quickly swallows down some more wine to clear the cheesecake out of her throat, and rallies her mind back to action. "Y-yes, yes I was there. A, a lot of fuss, for sure."

"Well?" presses Elizabeth, leaning forward across the table, "Did you see him then? Did you see the body?"

"Ye-yes, yes I did," she manages to squeak out.

Portia opens her mouth to ask another question, and Molly can see all the curiosity in their eyes, their sudden access to an inside source on the biggest scandal in London since Jim's –  _Moriarty's-_ theft of the crown jewels. And it's all too much – how can she keep pretending when Sherlock Holmes is literally ten inches from her, lying through her teeth about a man who is pressed up against her arm.

But then she hears the chair next to her push back, and a woosh of air passes over her arm as the man beside her gets to his feet. She looks up to see him extend a hand down to her, his eyes telling her to  _get up!_

"Molly, it's that song! You know, the one we heard on our first date?" he says, looking back towards the table. "I'm sorry to steal her away from you all, but I can't let this song be played without sneaking in a dance."

They all smile at that (how can you argue with that level of sentiment, after all?), and motion at Molly to get up, to go and dance.

 _Oh dear_ , Molly thinks to herself, remarking on the slow nature of the current song selection and the effects that this dance might wreak on her heart, but she stands up anyways, taking Sherlock's hand and following him out to the dance floor.


	6. A Dance and Many Drinks

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had a request to name the song they are dancing to. It is "This Year's Love" by David Gray.

_and I've been waiting on my own too long_

_but when you hold me like you do_

_it feels so right_

_i start to forget..._

\- david gray, "this year's love"

* * *

His mother was (and still is) fond of saying that he'd learnt to dance before he'd learnt to walk.

He's certain that is a gross exaggeration of the truth, one of those sentimental anecdotes told to elicit warm feelings in others, but truth be told, some of his earliest memories revolve around dancing. He can still remember his mother playing the Bee Gees' "Tragedy" at the highest volume in the sitting room, picking him up and dancing with him in her arms. He remembers slow dancing with one of his stuffed animals to Art Garfunkel's "Bright Eyes", shuffling from foot to foot with his eyes closed, just listening to the music. He danced everywhere – the movement just  _pleased_ him, the fluidity of it, the rhythm, the way it all came together.

When his father left his mother, dancing was the only way he could get her to be happy again. He remembers the sadness in her eyes, the way she'd sit so quietly for hours – the only way he could get her to smile by was asking her for a dance. They'd twirl around the sitting room, with him on his tip toes trying his best to look the part, swaying back and forth to the music, smiling at each other as they both tried to forget what could not be forgotten. Dancing became an escape for both of them – a state of body and mind where everything was alright, where everything would be okay.

He can't help but remember this as he guides Molly onto the dance floor. It's been ages since he's even  _seen_  people dancing in front of him, let alone doing it himself. He can feel the anticipation build within him – all these years later, he's never lost the his love for feeling the beat reverberate through him, the sensation of dancing in tandem with someone else (one of the few times in his life, indeed, where he enjoyed doing something with someone else).

He finds them a spot among the other dancers, and turns to face her. The music is slow, very slow – so he takes her by waist with one hand and slips his other palm up against her own. He pulls her close with the hand on the small of her back and starts to move to the rhythm, guiding her movements with his own.

She whispers something against his chest, something he can't quite hear.

"Speak up, Molly," he tells her authoritatively, lowering his head to murmur into her ear.

She clears her throat, and starts again. "They didn't even know."

"Know what?"

She looks up at him, and he notices that she has quite nicely proportioned eyes. "They didn't even know it was you. They didn't even realize."

He looks down at her quizzically. "Molly, that was rather the point."

"I know, I know," she says quickly. "It's just... everyone really does think you're dead."

He narrows his eyes, regarding her suspiciously. She'd had some wine, certainly, but not enough to confuse her this much. "Molly, I'm concerned that you may not fully understand what our original objectives were."

She sighs then, and looks away from him, back towards the floor. "No, I understand. You – you don't understand."

This, for some reasons, annoys him. Not full out annoyance (he reserves most of that for Anderson), but enough to get to him. Sherlock Holmes, if nothing else, was a man most capable of understanding, of comprehending.

He looks down at her again, and she raises her head back up at the sensation of his eyes on her. "Then help me understand, Molly," he demands, his voice low and dark, and then there's something different here, something different between them. He locks eyes with hers and now they are just staring at each other, caught between themselves, almost as if –

A tap on his shoulder breaks his attention away from Molly. "May I steal a dance?" Madelaine Hooper asks, smiling up at him from beside his left shoulder.

He looks down at Molly quickly, attempting to salvage whatever data collection he could from the past few moments, but whatever was briefly there between them, it's now gone, and Molly only smiles at him and tells her mother to enjoy the dance.

 

* * *

She can't stop thinking about their dance.

She's made her way back to the table, seating herself down amidst the empty chairs. The rest of the group had gotten up to mingle, to dance, to drink – but she'd decided to take respite from the constant visiting and escaped to sit on her own. Sherlock, for his part, had been snapped up by Bea (of course) for a dance or two after her mother, and then he'd been summoned to another group for a drink, and a chat, and then a drink, and on and on.

She can't believe how well he plays this part. The real Sherlock Holmes would have never been able to talk to these people for so long without having at least insulting half of them twice or more. She wonders what it must be like in his head in moments like this – moments where he is stuck talking to bottle bleach blondes and old men, nodding and smiling as if he gave a toss about what they were saying at all.

He's different, she's noticed, even when he's not playing his part. She wonders if it's starting to slip a little – if he's starting to blur the lines between the two personas. During their dance, she could have sworn there was a moment there, one of those moments that hold so much potential, one of those moments that might, just  _might_ , change things forever. He stared down at her, she stared up at him, and if he'd been any other man she would have known what would have come next. Maybe, deep down, he was more than like other men than he would let on... maybe this was  _the_ moment where everything changed...

But then her mother had tapped his shoulder and nothing had changed at all.

She gulps back some more of wine and sighs. Maybe there really hadn't been a "moment;, maybe it had just been her damned heart hoping against hope for something that would just never, ever happen. Why on earth would Sherlock Holmes ever want to kiss her? To touch her? Only Edmund Mortimer did those things, and she knows that that's not the same, no matter how much she pretends.

How nice would it be, though, to feel his lips pressed up against hers again? To feel his hands on her body, his fingers in her hair, his breath on her neck as he...

"How dare you abandon me," a low voice growls next to her ear, and she nearly jumps right out of her skin.

Stupidly, she worries that he might have been able to tell what she had just been thinking. "W-what? she stammers, still caught off guard.

He stands in front of her, arms behind his back, feet tapping a hurried rhythm into the floor. "I rescued you from that dreadful conversation at the table, and this is how you return the favour? By leaving me alone with those people? For godsakes, that Bea creature offered, in no uncertain terms, to perform certain sexual acts on me  _in the ladies' toilet_ ," he tells her, as if this was the most horrific and appalling thing in the world.

Insanely, a strong feeling of jealousy rises within her (fuelled most likely by the copious amount of wine she's consumed), and she fights hard to suppress it. "Oh?" she replies, lamely.

It doesn't matter, because he's not even really paying attention to her. "And really, what a stupid woman, doesn't she know that it's Jeremy who secretly loves her? All of them, so stupid; who  _hasn't_  noticed that Lydia's been having an affair with both Charles and Amanda, her body reeks of cheap cologne mingled with expensive perfume! Oh, these ordinary people, so normal... so  _boring_ ," he informs her, swinging his head back around to look at her, his expression expectant.

"Yes," she answers, blindly agreeing. "Yes, we really are quite boring."

He stares down at her for a moment. "You're all flushed, Molly."

She blushes at that, which makes her face even redder. "Must- must be the wine," she says softly.

He extends his hand to her, and pulls her up to her feet. "Come now, we're getting some air."

He pulls her through the people gathered around the door, and leads her out to the terrace beyond. There are others out around them with the same idea: couples taking a break from dancing, a few smokers gathered together in solidarity, a young man making what seems to be a somewhat apologetic phone call. The cold air of the night hits her, and she suddenly becomes dizzy.

She nearly stumbles, but Sherlock, sensing her light-headedness, reaches his other arm back and catches her before she can fall. He pulls her over to a bench and sits her down, his facial expression a hybrid between annoyance and...  _concern?_

"For godsakes, Molly," he mutters, though even as he's saying it, he's placing his arm around her back and under her arm to guide her safely down.

Even with his assistance, she can still feel herself hit the bench rather hard, and she recognizes that she must be drunker than she'd initially thought. But how? There'd only been that glass of wine before dinner, and then those two during dinner, and then the two after the dance floor...

Oh.

She giggles as she considers her current predicament.  _Never thought I'd be drunk alone with Sherlock Holmes_ , she thinks to herself.

"Would you care to share what you find so amusing, Molly?" he asks her.

She twists her body slightly so that she can face him. "Why did you pretend to be my boyfriend?" she asks him, ignoring his question.

He fixes her a blank look. "What do you mean?"

"When my mother came by, when you didn't stay hiding in the room. Why did you pretend to be my boyfriend?"

His eyes meet hers (oh, those eyes... she could live in those eyes). "Your mother seemed unusually preoccupied with your lack of a love interest. Also I was bored – it is dreadfully boring in your apartment, Molly," he informs her matter-of-factly.

"Have you ever had a girlfriend?" she asks him, still staring at him, at his features, at those cheekbones and eyes and mouth that she'd thought about in the middle of the night, wondering to herself what it would be like to touch them, to taste them, to have them be hers.

He looks away from her. "No."

"No?"

He is silent a moment, considering. "When I was at uni, I used to play... a game," he finally tells her.

His voice is strange now, almost cold. She can't help but shiver. "A-a game?"

He nods. "I would get high and go out to the pubs and see how long it took me to pull someone. Some nights I'd pretend to be someone else - some nights I'd be an active searcher, on others I would be passive and wait for them to come to me. Women, men – whoever I felt like analysing that night."

Suddenly, that nervous joviality she's been feeling dissipates, leaving her feeling empty inside. "Y-you pulled people for fun?"

"For  _research_ , Molly," he insists, and she wonders who he's really trying to convince. "I never brought them home – I only wanted to understand how it worked, how the intrinsic nature of courtship between two individuals would manifest itself in different situations. And when I reached data saturation, I simply stopped."

She doesn't really know what to think about this. She can't say she's all that surprised; if anyone was going to collect first-hand field data from drunken liaisons in pubs and clubs in the name of science, it would be Sherlock Holmes.

"You're playing a game right now, aren't you?" she asks, almost rhetorically, because she knows what this is. She's always known. But she's gone along with it anyway.

"Of course," he tells her point-blank, like it's the most obvious thing in the world.

They sit there for a moment, both staring out beyond the terrace to the garden beyond. On a whim, she turns her body even closer to his, her knees pressing up against the side of his leg, her hand reaching out to grab his lapel. He turns her attention back to her, clearly startled.

"Sssherlock, I – " she slurs, the alcohol rearing its ugly head now, making her forget his false name, making her forget everything, really.

"Yes, Molly?" he asks, his brow furrowed in confusion.

 _Sherlock, I want to kiss you. Sherlock, I want to touch you. Sherlock, I want **you** , _she thinks to herself, trying to pull the right words together, through the wine-induced haze in her brain. But she can't quite string the sounds together, can't quite get her mouth around the words, so she grips his lapel tighter, her body moving closer to his, her eyes searching out his own –

And promptly passes out in his lap, the alcohol having won the battle between her mind and her body, whisking her away to the land of the unconscious and the unknown.


	7. A Ride Home

He was fifteen years old the first time he'd gotten drunk.

It had been an experiment, a practical exploration of the effects of alcohol on the physiological actions and psychological behaviours of the human body and mind. He'd begun to notice the effects of the substance on the adults in his life years ago, when he'd still been just a boy and his father would pour himself one-two-three brandies when he would come home in the evenings, the amount of brandy consumed in an inverse relationship with the strength of his parents' marriage.

Mycroft, however, had begun to drink openly with his friends, having been away to uni and developing a somewhat false sense of familiarity with the effects and repercussions of alcohol in its many forms. That was, in fact, how he'd obtained the supplies for his experiment – he'd nicked a bottle of gin from his brother's room one afternoon while the sibling in question was out at the pub with his friends.

It had been a horrible experience. He'd holed himself up in his room (Mummy was away in London, and the housekeepers knew to never bother him when his door was closed), and proceeded to drink straight out of the bottle (he'd assumed most alcohol was consumed in this manner – he had yet to discover the advantages of the addition of tonic). At first, he'd felt nothing – and then, giddy – and then, quite simply, he'd felt out of control. His last memory of that first foray into the world of substance intoxication was the fuzzy recollection of lying on the floor of his room, watching the ceiling spin, trying his best to will his roiling stomach into submission.

The next morning, he'd woken up curled up on his side, his mouth dry and stale, with what suspiciously looked like vomit on the baseboards next to him.

While he'd never achieved that level of alcohol intoxication again, he  _had_  found something in the sensation of altering his state of mind, being able to transcend the confines of normal thought process and leaping outwards into the greater unknown. At university, he'd started to exchange tutoring sessions for access to drugs – marijuana at first, then onto morphine, and finally cocaine – and eventually he'd found himself living in a world tipped sideways, spending most of his time in a reality mediated by drugs, altering his perceptions and letting him feel – for the first time in his life – the closest to "normal" as he'd ever felt before. He'd felt, in a nutshell,  _free_.

Maybe that's why Molly had gone and gotten herself so completely and utterly drunk. She's passed out in his lap now, her head resting on the edge of his thigh, and he can't help but sigh as he looks down at her prone form. "Good lord, Molly," he mutters down to her, before closing his eyes and taking a moment to center himself.

He opens them again a few moments later, and moves his arms to lift her up from his lap - he wasn't so clueless to normal human behaviours to know what an observer might assume, seeing a woman's face buried in his lap, out here in the dark in the garden. He pulls her back to a (mostly) upright position, turning her head to lean it again her shoulder. She moans slightly as he moves her, but she doesn't awaken.

"Right," he utters to himself as he considers his options, and then slides an arm under the crook of her legs and the other beneath her arms, lifting her up in one smooth motion into his grasp.

Even as a dead weight, she still didn't weigh much; that said, the last person he'd picked up was the recently deceased body of a rather rotund older man, so the comparison between the two was not quite equitable. He pulled her hanging and limp arm up and into his hold, the junction between his arm and shoulder serving as a cradle for her head (she would not easily forgive him for any head injuries obtained during this type of transport, even in her current state).

He makes his way back inside the hall, ignoring the stares of the other guests, only stopping to smile apologetically and utter contrived platitudes ("She's just had a bit too much to drink, poor girl,") whenever stopped and questioned. He spots Madelaine Hooper from across the hall and motions her over, explaining to her the situation and his plan for their departure.

"You can't go all the way back to London tonight!" she tells him, her eyes flashing with concern. "No, no – you'll stay at the hotel with us," she continues, fishing out a card from her purse. "Tell the manager you're with the wedding party – there are three extra suites booked for the evening for these type of... situations," she finishes, gesturing down towards her daughter's unmoving body, giving her unconscious offspring a reproachful look with her eyes.

Normally, he would protest gently, reassuring her that he could manage the situation on his own, but even as he opens his mouth to tell her this, he can feel his arms starting to ache, just a little, the fatigue setting in.

"That would be lovely, Madelaine," he tells her, accepting the proffered card with the limited reach of his right hand.

He bids her goodnight, and steps out into the cool night air once more, heading over to one of the waiting cabs down by the road. The cabbie steps out to help him with the door, and he slides inside, settling Molly into place between the door and himself.

She surprises him by nestling herself up against him, some sort of automatic response brought on by her current state. His first instinct is to push her away, but he can see the cabbie steal a glance back at them in the mirror, so instead he pulls her even tighter against him, his arm wrapping around her shoulder as her head falls against his chest.

As they drive on towards their destination, he is surprised yet again by how...  _pleasant_ it feels to have her body pressed up against his. He can feel her breath even through his jacket and shirt, her small frame snug up against his larger one. He can't remember the last time he'd had someone this close to him for this long... It is a strange feeling, a hybrid between pleasure and discomfort, his carefully constructed borders being trespassed so suddenly and yet, so enjoyably. He's not quite certain how to process these conflicting sensations... But then cab pulls up at the hotel, and he doesn't have to think about it anymore.

He hands the cabbie a few notes and utters his thanks, before reaching back into the cab and scooping Molly up into his arms once more. She twists within his grasp to nuzzle her face into his chest, burying her nose into the fabric, and against his will his breath catches in his throat at the sensation. Angrily, he sends those physiological sensations away, burying them deep down, down and away where he didn't have to think about them anymore.

Inside the lobby, he hands the night manager the card, and is swiftly given a key to a suite down the hall. He manoeuvres himself to enable his hand to reach the door, sliding the electronic key through the reader and slipping through into the room beyond. He sighs in frustration when he notices the single bed, but he is too tired and irritated to bring himself to care. Leaning forward, he slips Molly out of his arms and onto the bed, standing upright to stretch his aching muscles out.

He stares down at her prone form, limbs all splayed out haphazardly, her hair now dishevelled from his transport of her, an unconscious mess.  _Ordinary people..._  he thinks to himself as he leans forward, making quick work of her shoes and preparing her for bed.

* * *

 

Molly wakes up to an earthquake.

Well, not an actual earthquake – this earthquake is a much more localized event. As is localized in her head. Her brain seems to be acting like an angry caged animal, surging against the bony cage that contains it. She groans in pain and agitation, feeling the worst she's felt since Marie's 29th birthday party several years ago, when she'd drank herself into a stupor and ended up snogging some random male she'd met in the late-night crowd line at a chip shop.

"Good. You're awake," remarks a very deep, very familiar voice, and her eyes snap opened as it all comes back to her in a flash.

She groans again, this time in sheer embarrassment.

"Wh-where-" she starts, but the dryness in her mouth makes her cough, and she starts gagging on her own breath.

"For goddsakes," she can hear him say (the eye-rolling implicit in his tones), but he's there in an instant, passing her a glass of water, water that she's never been so thankful to have in her life.

She gulps it down and wipes at her mouth, feeling a tiny bit more human again. "Thank you," she says sincerely, bravely looking up to meet his eyes.  _Don't think about passing out in his lap, Molly, don't think about how he got out of there, or how you got here, or where exactly_ here  _is..._

She looks around the room, suddenly aware that the setting is not a familiar place. "Where are we?" she asks him, unable to pinpoint where they'd ended up.

"A suite at the Pine Cross Hotel," he tells her, and she notices that he is still perfectly dressed, perfectly coiffed – like he'd simply sprung up ready for the day. She hates him for it.

"Your mother...  _offered_  us a room when she became aware of your state," he continues, his arm gesturing towards her in the bed. She blushes, even more embarrassed than before, but he ignores her reaction and continues. "I had no desire to carry you on and off trains all the way back to London, so I accepted and brought you here to... sleep it off."

She closes her eyes in abject horror. "I'm so, so sorry," she tells him, her eyes still closed. "I never meant to get that drunk, Sherlock, I swear." She leaves out the part where she'd drank to avoid dealing with her feelings for him; if things weren't already awkward enough, that might bring it up to the next level.

His response, however, surprises her. "You helped me to fake my own death, and allow me to stay in your home – my assistance in getting you home is nothing compared to that," he tells her, his voice quiet.

She opens her eyes. Was that...  _gratitude_? From Sherlock Holmes? "W-well, thank you, Sherlock, I really do appreciate-" her words are cut short as she becomes aware of what she is wearing beneath the blankets. Or, more precisely, what she is  _not_  wearing.

"Sh-Sherlock? Did you take my dress off?"

He blinks at her. "Yes. I assumed you wouldn't want to ruin your new item of clothing; comparatively, it is one of the nicest items in your current wardrobe, not to mention one of the most expensive. I hung it up in the closet; it would do nothing to wrinkle the fabric."

She blushes what she  _knows_  must be a bright, bright red. "Oh dear," she squeaks out.

He rolls his eyes at her reaction. "Molly, please. I am a grown man. Though I do not frequently partake in the indulgences of the flesh, I am quite familiar with the anatomy of the female form. Besides, I only removed your dress – your  _dignity_ remains intact," he informs her, and she swears she can see the corners of his lips turn up in a barely contained grin.

"Now," he says, changing tracks abruptly, "your mother requested our presence at  _brunch_  this morning," almost spitting out the word. "She's brought by a change of clothes for you to wear – I suggest you attempt to ready yourself as best you can," he finishes, and now he really is grinning – grinning  _at_ her and her current state.

"I will await you in the lobby – be ready in twenty minutes," he tells her, before sweeping out the door, the lock clicking shut once more.

She places her head in her hands and sighs. Drunken antics that lead to embarrassment? Check. Passing out in the lap of the man of her dreams? Check. Needing to be carried home by said man? Check. Being unceremoniously undressed and put to bed by the very same man? Check, check, check...

And now onto a tedious brunch with her mother and her mother's friends, all while nursing a raging hangover and attempting to forget a certain series of embarrassing events.  _Today is certainly starting off right_ , she remarks to herself morosely, before dragging herself over to the shower in her half-hearted attempt to somehow look human once again.


	8. A Forgotten Introduction

He doesn't remember meeting Molly Hooper.

There's no memory hidden away in his mind palace that relates to their first encounter; if there ever had been one, he must have deleted it years ago. There is only a clear delineated border in his recollections: a Time Before Molly and a Time After Molly. The Time After Molly recollections were the better of the two sets, as the previous pathologist at Bart's had been a stickler for the rules, and, as a sixty year-old heterosexual man, impervious to Sherlock's… manipulations.

He does, however, still have some of his initial deductions about the young pathologist. Namely, the fact that he'd been genuinely surprised to see a woman of her age in her position as Bart's – she was barely in her thirties, and yet she'd finished both medical school and her forensic pathology training, no mean feat. He also remembers thinking that she was both quite insecure and dreadfully dull, which had probably contributed to his decision to delete any extraneous information he had about her (including that first encounter).

Now, however, having been exposed to Molly for a significant period of time, he finds himself strangely curious about what the Sherlock Holmes of three years past had thought about the Molly Hooper from three years ago in the moments of their first meeting. He asks her about this as they walk down the high street from their hotel to the restaurant, Molly's red eyes hidden conveniently by a pair of over-sized sunglasses.

"When we first met?" she repeats, somewhat confused. "Oh! Well, we met at work: one night you came down to check on some lab results, and it was love at first-" she starts, trying to remember the exact words he'd used to describe it to her on the train.

"No, no," he interrupts, cutting her off with a wave of his hand. "I don't mean you and  _Edmund_ -" he explains exasperatedly, "I mean you and I."

She looks over at him. "You want to know we first met?" she asks slowly.

He rolls his eyes. "Yes, I do."

She pauses for a moment, unsure, but when he doesn't speak again, she begins to describe her recollection of the event. "You, uh, you were already in the lab when I came in for my shift – you were seated at one of the microscopes, working on a sample you'd taken from Lestrade."

"What was the sample?" he asks abruptly, flipping back through his memories like a catalogue, trying to identify the past case.

"Hair follicles found in a cargo container," she answers, smiling to herself. "That was the first thing you said to me."

 _Hmm,_  he thinks to himself, recalling this particular case quite clearly. It had been a human trafficking ring – the hairs had belonged to the daughter of a prominent Scottish physician; they'd tracked down the point of shipping origin for the container and had recovered the doctor's daughter, along with a number of other girls who had been kidnapped or sold into sexual slavery. An intriguing case, to say the least.

"And then?" he prompts, placing a hand on her upper arm to guide her into turning down another side street; he isn't convinced that she is entirely sober yet.

"You – uh, you asked me where the new pathologist could be found. I told you it was me, and then you just ignored me and kept working. You really don't remember this?"

"No," he replies, frowning. "What did you think?"

She shoots him an alarmed look. "Wh-what do you mean?"

"What did you think of me?"

She pauses for a moment before answering. "I thought – I thought you were imposing. A bit scary, really. And-" she starts, but doesn't finish her sentence, simply blushing furiously to herself.

"And-?"

"And – I quite liked your coat," she finishes somewhat lamely, and he narrows his eyes as he looks at her. She's lying, that much is clear. About what? The coat? No, can't be the coat – he's noticed her staring at the coat before, always quite interested. But what?

"Edmund! Molly! How lovely to see you," calls out Madelaine from the patio of the restaurant. "Come and join us!" she exclaims, gesturing to the group gathered around a large table.

He pushes away his thoughts on the matter for the time being, and takes Molly's hand earnestly, sending a brilliant smile Madelaine's way. "I quite like that coat too, Molly," he whispers to her pointedly, letting her know his awareness of her little white lie, before guiding her through the tables and pulling out a chair for her, sitting down with the rest of their party for some mid-morning brunch.

* * *

 

Molly knows if she even  _looks_  at another poached egg, she  _will_  vomit all over the table.

A disgusting admission, to be sure, but an honest one. She still feels like total rubbish, her body sore and her head just  _throbbing_  from her wine hangover. She'd had to remove her sunglasses at the table, but luckily no one had made any  _audible_  remarks about her current state. Surely her mother had elaborated on the subject before she and Sherlock had arrived ("Oh, don't mind Molly, she imbibed in a little too much wine last night, that's all!). How lovely.

The rest of the group had parted ways after the end of their long and arduous meal, each of them returning to their hotels, or cars, or… wherever. She hadn't really noticed – she'd been (and still remains) preoccupied with putting one foot in front of the other, keeping it all together as best she can.

Her mother is still with them, heading back to the hotel – she and Sherlock are caught up in a discussion about the dreadful state of the roadway infrastructure in this part of the country ("Can you believe they want to privatize the roadways?"). She doesn't join them – that type of focused effort is completely beyond her at this point. Her whole body just feels…  _awful_ , so weak and so frail, and that combined with the swimming of her head makes her –

The next thing she knows, she is lying on the ground, Sherlock leaning over her, his blue eyes boring down into hers.

"Molly?" he asks softly, uncharacteristically, but then she remembers that he's not her Sherlock right now, he's Edmund (and did she really just think of him as  _her_  Sherlock?).

"Wha-what happened?" she mumbles, completely disoriented.

"You fainted, darling," her mother replies, and she shifts her eyes to focus on the other figure above her, her mother looking down at her with concern. "Let's get you inside."

"Put your arm around my neck, Molly," Sherlock tells her, and she stares dumbly up at him for a moment. He sighs – and that  _is_  Sherlock, slipping through the veneer – before gently looping one arm around her neck and wrapping the other around her waist, lifting her upwards into his strong hold. Instinctively, she follows his command, clutching to his neck as she feels herself leaving the Earth.

He brings her into the hotel lobby, before gently dropping her down into one of the armchairs next to the fireplace. She closes her eyes for a moment, attempting to steady herself, her body still tingling from her sudden fall.

"I'll go get our things," he tells her softly, before leaning forward and pressing a kiss against her forehead. The skin burns hot where his lips touch her, and if she wasn't so ill to begin with, she's sure she would have blushed.

"Are you alright, Molly? Shall we take you to the hospital?" her mother asks, feeling her brow with the back of her hand.

Molly weakly brushes her mother's hand away. "I'm fine, Mum," she tells her. "Just – just feeling a bit under the weather, that's all."

Her mother scoffs at this. "Under the weather – is that what we are calling two bottles of wine in an evening, now?"

"Mum," Molly moans, dropping her head into her hands. "I know, okay?"

"You take care of her now," she hears her mother say, and Molly looks up again to see Sherlock beside her, her coat and dress draped neatly over one of his arms.

"Absolutely," he answers reassuringly, before reaching his free arm down to her. "Ready?" he asks, his eyes locked with hers.

"Absolutely," she answers half-mockingly, still dazed, before grabbing his hand and rising unsteadily to her feet, more than ready to get on their way home.

* * *

 

They'd bid her mother goodbye while at the hotel; apparently, one of her aunts had wanted to do some shopping in Brighton before they left, so Molly and Sherlock had made their way to the train station alone. The journey home had been a quiet one – she'd slept most of the way, her head leaning against the glass, her coat draped over her to ward off the strange chill that had settled in her bones. Sherlock had only stared out the window, lost in his own thoughts, and they'd stayed silent even in the cab between the station and her flat.

Stepping through the door now, she breathes a sigh of relief – she can finally take off these damn clothes, put on her gloriously mismatched pyjamas, and finally go to sleep.

Sherlock latches the door as he steps through, and rips off his wig in one swift motion, running his fingers quickly through his own hair. "Ah, freedom," he mutters to himself, before dropping the wig haphazardly on the coffee table.

"That was… amusing," he tells her, nodding once in her direction. "A suitable escape from the dreariness of  _this_ ," he finishes, gesturing to the flat around him with disdain.

Molly doesn't say anything, simply taking off her shoes one at a time, feeling more tired now than ever before.

He sweeps through the sitting room past her, taking off his coat and hanging it on the coat rack, before seating himself in her lone armchair, his fingers steepled under his chin.

"Next time, Molly, we will have to ensure that you get nowhere near the wine. Clearly you are incapable of handling yourself around the substance; really, you should know better – it's not like you lack experience."

She bristles at this. "What do you mean?"

He looks over to her. "Molly, there were five empty wine bottles in your cupboard when you first brought me here. The wine opener stays almost exclusively on the countertop next to the sink, and you have a favourite wine glass that you keep impeccable, even though the frequent use has rendered it a little dull and worn. You are the typical thirty-something single woman – a glass of wine after work, a book as your source of escape, a cat as your lone companion. Elementary, really."

She drops her last shoe to the ground with a loud thud. "How do you always know exactly the wrong thing to say?" she whispers, anger and humiliation burning in her stomach.

"What's that, Molly? Do speak up."

She closes her eyes, and from the combination the anger and the fatigue and the general feeling of malaise, tears start to tug at the edges of her eyes. She brushes at them with the back of her hand, wiping them away furiously.

"There won't be a next time," she tells him, her voice shaking with emotion as she gets to her feet.

"What?" he replies, his head snapping around to look at her. "Molly, why are you – "

Her cheeks burn with embarrassment as she watches him take stock of her tears. "Ple-please just - just leave me alone," she rushes out, before turning on her heel and escaping into her bedroom.

She stays in there for the rest of the day and for the entirety of the night; when she wakes up in the morning, feeling somewhat more human again, she walks out into the sitting room and finds him gone.


	9. An Epiphany

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hello all! My apologies for not updating sooner, it's that time of year when manuscripts and projects are due. Ah, grad school. Why did I ever decide to attend you?
> 
> But here we are! This chapter takes a left turn from humour straight back into my customary angst, so ye be warned. :)
> 
> EDIT: Thank you for all the lovely comments and reviews. Two issues that have come to light, thanks to the lovely MildredandBobbin and olivetrees. olivetrees, thank you so much for pointing out my error in Edmund's last name! I am so embarassed; Edmund Talbot is the name of Benedict Cumberbatch's character in To the Ends of the Earth, and not Edmund Mortimer as I had named Sherlock's alter ego. Oh dear! And MildredandBobbin pointed out that "lavatory" is not the appropriate term to describe what I wanted to describe (aka a bathroom) - thank you for the Britpick!
> 
> Again, thank you so much for the comments, everyone. I hope you all continue enjoying reading this tale (not much left to it now!)

He's not quite sure what he's done wrong.

He plays the conversation back over in his head, after Molly's run off in tears and slammed the bedroom behind her.

"Next time, Molly, we will have to ensure that you get nowhere near the wine. Clearly you are incapable of handling yourself around the substance; really, you should know better – it's not like you lack experience."

No problem there. It was quite evident, really – the way that the corkscrew showed signs of frequent use, the faded wine stain on the carpet next to the coffee table, the prominent placement of a single wine glass in her kitchen cabinets: clearly, it was used frequently, much more frequently than the second glass.

"Molly, there were five empty wine bottles in your cupboard when you first brought me here. The wine opener stays almost exclusively on the countertop next to the sink, and you have a favourite wine glass that you keep impeccable, even though the frequent use has rendered it a little dull and worn."

Again- obvious, really. Five empty bottles would be apparent to even an imbecile that Molly Hooper was no stranger to the occasional chardonnay or Riesling. How would that have been hurtful in any possible way?

"You are the typical thirty-something single woman – a glass of wine after work, a book as your source of escape, a cat as your lone companion. Elementary, really."

And the conclusion. What could have possibly set her off from –

Oh, he thinks, as the realization hits him.

And there it is again, the unpredictability of sentiment, the aggravating way that emotion worms its way into everything, weakening the structural integrity of the little arrangement he'd come to appreciate with Molly. He may be, as John so succinctly put it to him once in a fit of moderate irritation, "an emotional cripple", but he is most certainly not a fool. Molly Hooper is a typical thirty-something single woman – and that is the one thing in her life that bothers her the most. He knows this from the way that she collects second-hand, dog-eared Harlequin romances and the way that she mouths the lines to Love Actually and The Notebook every time she thinks he isn't watching. He knows this from what she assumes remains a secret stash of future baby items (a little blue jumper and a tiny woolen hat) that she keeps hidden away, most likely family heirlooms passed down from her mother, physical reminders of a goal she has yet to achieve.

And then John's voice (which seems more smug than it had that first time) comes back to him, echoing through time: "...no that, that was not kind..."

Oh.

Had he... hurt Molly? And, more to the point, did he care? Did he care how the little mousy pathologist felt, if her feelings were hurt or her ego bruised? What did it matter to him if she got angry, or disappointed, or sad, tears running down her face as she looked at him, so lonely, so forlorn...

Suddenly, the flat is too small for him, the walls too close, so he grabs his coat and the wig and makes for the door, his hand scrambling for the doorknob, needing to get away from this flat and these feelings, and everything else that reminds him of Dr. Molly Hooper.

\-----

She doesn't know where he's gone.

When she wakes up the following morning, after that awful hangover and that awful brunch and those (unintentionally, she's sure) awful words that he'd said, she half expects to find him on the sofa, not asleep but brooding, that look on his face when there's a puzzle to unravel. But when she tiptoes her way over to the sitting room in her stocking feet, she finds the room empty, his shoes and jacket and wig all gone.

That evening, when she gets home from the hospital, she can't help but feel nervous and excited as she twists her key in the lock, hoping despite herself to open the door to find him pacing in his dressing gown, black curls wild and his fingers steepled under his chin, just like how it used to be.

Silence, however, is the only thing that greets her, cold and quiet and unwelcoming, a painful reminder of just how alone she really is.

\-----

She meets up with John thirteen days after Sherlock disappears from her flat.

She hasn't seen him in a while, not since the funeral. To be honest, she hadn't even meant to see him now, but they'd ran into each other at the M&S near the hospital, where she'd ducked into grab a sandwich and some chocolate before she headed back to her empty home.

"John!" she exclaims, spotting him over by the packaged fruit.

He turns to her, and smiles instantly. God, she'd forgotten how nice it was to speak with him, so much the opposite of his stoic and sneering roommate. Former roommate, she reminds herself quickly. Can't forget that.

"Do you want to grab some coffee?" he asks her, after they hug quickly (she hadn't pegged him to be much of one for embracing others, but death does strange things to people, she supposes).

They make their way to the Costa down the road, not quite talking, only small pleasantries exchanged between them. At the table in the café, it doesn't take long for their talk to turn to Sherlock Holmes, really the only connecting link between them.

It's John who brings him up first, just in passing, a statement that is on the surface meant to be funny, but deeper, speaks of so much more. "I'm surprised Costa shares haven't decreased since... well, you know," he says softly, his voice trailing off at the end.

She makes herself smile, as best she can. "He did love coffee," she replies, and she's inwardly proud that she doesn't even stumble on using the appropriate tense.

"I haven't gone into his room yet," he blurts out, his hands gripping his coffee cup tightly, the skin of his knuckles turning white under the stress. "I can't – I... I don't want to."

She considers this a moment, looking down into the brown liquid in front of her, remembering how long it had taken her to even look at the doorway to her father's study in her parent's home, unable to face the reality of the new dust settling on his favourite books, the fading of his scent on his favourite jacket, the absence of his fingerprints on the window sill, where he would lean in the morning to watch the birds in the yard, the little songbirds that would perch on the bird house he'd made himself, back when his hands had still –

She shakes her head to knock those memories away, and looks back up to John. "I- I think I know what you mean," she answers softly, and boldly she reaches across the table to brush her fingertips against his hand, offering what comfort she can.

He redirects his attention back to her, and she can see his eyes studying her, and suddenly all she can think about is Sherlock, and the way he'd looked at her when she'd fainted in Brighton, his blue eyes locked on hers, always searching for more clues, any clues, but never letting her see within.

"He – he liked you Molly. As well as he could," John tells her, as if he can read her mind.

She scoffs self-depreciatingly at this, and folds her hands back into her lap. If only he could have been there, there in the flat, when he'd informed her about just how alone she really is, and how she would always be alone.

"I mean it. He didn't really like anyone, except for Lestrade, and Mrs. Hudson, and – and me, I suppose. But he liked you too – he would have never trusted you the way he did, working in the lab, helping him the way you do –" he shakes his head abruptly, and corrects himself. "The way you did," he finishes, and that sadness that had faded earlier returns to his eyes, weighing him down like an anchor.

She wishes she could tell him that it will be alright – that Sherlock is not only still alive, but that he'll solve this little problem that's been... inconveniencing him, and that he'll be back before he'll know it, running down the High Street in his silly long coat, pacing up and down the floorboards of 221B, poking and prodding specimens in her lab at all hours of the night, just like it all used to be.

But she can't tell him that. So she just nods helplessly and finishes her coffee in two long gulps, silence settling back in between them.

\------

She gets home late that evening, not able to face her flat alone after talking (and not talking) with John. She can't imagine what it must feel like for him, having actually lived with Sherlock, having gotten used to the way he would leave body parts in the refrigerator, or the way he would play the violin in the middle of the night, or the way he'd pace around in a mad frenzy before dropping down into the sofa, almost catatonic, lost in his own thoughts. Insanely, she feels almost jealous at this thought, at that kind of intimacy with the world's only consulting detective – she knows now just how dangerous this "Edmond Talbot" game had really been, not only for the sake of safeguarding his falsified demise but also for safeguarding her already lonely and aching heart.

She slips inside her front door quietly, not wanting to disturb her neighbours downstairs (who had complained, over the past weeks, about the increased amount of noise from her flat above them). She slides off her jacket and turns around to hang it on the wall, and when she turns back around again she finds herself facing Sherlock Holmes.

She manages to swallow her scream but drops her bags, and Sherlock catches them before they hit the ground, one large and pale hand snapping outwards to grab them in mid-air. She stumbles back against the door, her heart beating furiously in her chest, and she wills herself to calm down, to reign in that fight-or-flight instinct that had taken over control.

"Sh-Sherlock?" she manages to blurt out, still trying to return herself to normal, to regain her composure (as much as she could ever have composure in front of him).

"Hello, Molly," he replies, before moving to set the bags on the coffee table and gesturing for her to sit.

Wordlessly, she follow his command, walking over to the sofa to plunk herself down on the cushions, finally feeling normal again.

"H-how?" she starts, still confused. "Where did you go?"

He doesn't quite look at her, still standing, one of his feet tapping down into the floorboards. "I – I decided it was time to seek out Moriarty's network, to find out how to bring it down."

She can't help herself. "And?"

He starts to move, pacing back and forth, pressing his palms together in front of him, fingers intertwining. "Sebastian Moran," he answers, and doesn't elaborate.

"Wh-What?"

He snaps his hands apart and gestures out widely to the expanse of the sitting room. "Sebastian Moran – or, as he is more formally known, Colonel Sebastian Moran. Former American Army colonel, parents were Irish immigrants who had mob connections in New York, dishonorably discharged for assaulting not one but two superior officers. Worked as a mercenary in the Middle East for several years before dropping off of the grid – which was, of course, precisely when Moriarty swept him into his organization. Now, with Moriarty gone, it's all about Moran... Moran..."

Sherlock's voice trails off and he stops moving again, his hands back down at his sides, a lone finger tapping into the fabric covering his left thigh. She's not quite sure what to say next, or if he's even really speaking to her at all.

"Why did you allow yourself to become so intoxicated at the wedding?" he asks suddenly, still not facing her, his eyes now fixed on the window out into the street, six floors up from the ground.

Instantly, she can feel her face flush with heat, and she's glad for the half-light, hopefully hiding her blush in the dark. "I – I don't kn-"

He scoffs at her. "Please, Molly – do remember who you are talking to. Why did you drink so much at the wedding? You are not a teenaged youth, you know precisely how alcohol affects you. So – why?"

She squeezes her eyes shut, embarrassed beyond belief. "To cope," she murmurs, her voice a mere squeak, so quiet even in the near-silent flat.

"To cope with what?" he asks, but his voice has lost most of that derisive quality of a few moments ago, more... gentle? But no – Sherlock Holmes was not gentle, not even close.

She keeps her eyes closed, unable to even look at him, wanting nothing more than to crawl back into herself and hide there, away from this man, this man who she could never seem to be rid of. "I –" she starts, and then sighs.

"Molly?"

"To cope with you," she blurts out, and then the words start spilling out of her, all the thoughts she'd kept to herself when she would stand next to Edmund Mortimer, her arm looped through his, watching him be everything she'd ever hoped he could be to her. "To cope with being around you, when you're pretending to be someone else, someone who smiles at me and talks to me and touches me – and I can't –" she's just babbling now, tears starting to tug at the edges of her eyes, and god, what is she thinking, telling him this?

He doesn't say anything, not a single word, and after a few moments she decides she can't take it anymore, she has to know how he's reacted to this. She blinks her eyes open, brushing the few tears that had collected, and her eyes suddenly meet his, still so very blue even in the half-light.

"Sher-Sherlock?" she asks, nervous now. There's something in his eyes, something alien and strange, a look she's never seen in his eyes before.

"Are you –" she starts to ask, but then he's moving over to her, long steps with his long legs, and unconsciously she presses herself back into the cushions of the sofa, reacting on instinct.

"Sherlock?" she breathes, and she has no idea what he's thinking, what he's doing, and she finds herself scared now, alone with him in the moonlight.

He kneels in front of her without a word, and slides his hands under the crook of her knees, pulling her forward to the edge of the sofa. She gasps, unsure whether to be nervous or excited, but she doesn't really have time to truly consider it, because his hands are now on her face, cupping her cheeks, and the next thing she knows his lips are pressed against hers, soft and warm, and all other thoughts are replaced by this hunger she's felt for so long, the hunger she'd tried to drown with alcohol that night in Brighton, a hunger she thought could never be satisfied.

One of his hands drops from her face to press against the junction of her neck and chest, framing the base of her throat, and she stifles a moan, the feel of his fingers on her skin almost too much to bear. His tongue presses against her closed lips and, without even thinking, she opens her mouth to him, wanting nothing more than to feel him even closer to her, as close as he can possibly get.

But then her brain kicks in, and she realizes what is happening, and what is he doing? What is this?

She pulls away from him, pushing herself back against the sofa once more, and tries to regain control of her breathing, of her body, of her heart. "Sherlock – wh-what is this?"

He doesn't answer, just stares at her, and she swears he seems just as confused as her, just as unsettled.

"Who are you?" she finds herself asking, her heart sinking at the realization that this is just another part of his act, his Edmund coming back again to play his little social experiment. But there's no one here to act for, just him and her, and she doesn't know what to think anymore.

"Molly – I –" he starts, but does not finish, and before she knows it, he's rocking back onto his heels and pushing himself upright, his eyes darting away from hers, unable to look at her.

"Forgive me," he whispers, and before she can reply he's sweeping out the door, a blur in the half-light, and she can't even bring herself to rise up and fully close the door, still too stunned and shocked to really think or do anything at all.


	10. A Long Absence

Three years.

Three years pass.

After that night, that night where everything slipped sideways and he'd kissed her on the sofa, kissed her for  _real_ , she hadn't known what to think or what to do. She'd stayed there, frozen in place, her lips still tingling from the pressure his mouth had exerted on her own, hard and fast and  _hungry_. She could still feel his hands under the crook of her knees, pulling her against him, his touch like ice on her burning skin. But then his hands had pulled away, and his mouth had left hers, and he'd bolted through the door, leaving it open in his wake. Minutes or hours later, she'd finally pulled herself up off of the sofa and put herself to bed, her head still reeling, the image of his eyes looking into hers still haunting her as she fell asleep.

In the morning, when she'd opened her eyes half hopeful that it had all been just a dream, he was still gone. And continued to be, every morning after.

For the first few weeks, she finds herself constantly checking over her shoulder, looking for a shadowy figure in a long jacket trailing behind her, watching her every move. She studies faces on the tube, on the bus, on the street – looking under hats and mustaches and hooded sweatshirts to see those high cheekbones, that porcelain skin that she knew so well. But that man in the jacket behind her on her way to work is nearly fifty years old with a paunch bulging through the lines of his long coat, and the face shadowed by a hat on the Victoria line is an octogenarian, laugh lines and wrinkles criss-crossing his time-worn features.

Sometimes, late into her shift, the door to the morgue will open and she will turn to face the newcomer, fully expecting to see that oh-so-familiar figure walk through the door, tall and quick and confident, already barking out a request before he even enters the room. Her heart always skips a beat, but falters when she realizes it's the lab technician returning a sample to her, or a doctor coming in to check on results, or a janitor entering to clear the rubbish bins.

She slowly lets Edmund Mortimer fall out of her life. She mentions less and less 'dates' with him to her mother, and gradually lets it slip that Edmund is considering a move to Melbourne, to take up a new position at a local hospital and in order to be closer to his aging mother and stepfather.

_"Surely you can find a job there as well, Molly? Australia must also have need of pathologists; people die everywhere, you know."_

_This surprises Molly. Her mother had_ never _been keen on letting her daughter move too far away – but Australia was somehow okay? Madelaine must like Edmund more than she thought... (but didn't everyone just_ love _Edmund? What with those eyes, and that mouth, and that smile, that beautiful smile...)_

_Molly shrugs. "I – I don't want to go to Melbourne. I like my job here..." she says, her voice faltering at the end, willing herself to follow this deception through._

_Her mother only grimaces and shakes her head, and two weeks later, Edmund Mortimer "boards" a Qantas flight for Melbourne, leaving England for a place halfway around the world_.

Months pass. Winter comes back to London, with a chill in the air and the appearance of the heavy winter windbreakers she always associates with the change in the season, signalling the end of yet another year. She spends her days and her nights alone, watching films and reading books that remind her of him, detective novels where the hero always saves the day and evil is always vanquished.

One of the endocrinologists from St. Bart's asks her out on a date in February, and when she can't quite think of an excuse quickly enough, she accepts, meeting him two nights later at restaurant in Shoreditch. He is kind and witty and handsome enough, but when he leans in to kiss her at the end of the night, all she can see behind her closed eyes is Sherlock, leaning in, his lips on hers, pulling her closer to him.

She doesn't see the endocrinologist again.

* * *

 

A year after the fall, she meets John for coffee, the first time she's seen him since that last run-in, so many months ago.

The tabloids have all been featuring stories about the anniversary of the great consulting detective's suicide, follow-ups about his lies and his deceits and his failures. It hurts her heart to see him shamed so publicly, to see how devastatingly complete Moriarty's destruction of Sherlock Holmes has become.

John is positively bristling with anger when she meets him outside the Liverpool Street station. "Look at them all," he mutters as they walk along the road, "reading that trash. They don't know anything." His body is tense, so tense – like a elastic stretched to its limits, taught to point of snapping.

She touches his arm lightly, and she can feel some of that tension pour into her, and she can feel the anger the doctor feels too, nearly tangible between them. "It's Moriarty, John," she tells him softly. "Moriarty did this."

John's mouth only takes on a hard line, jaws clenched in an expression of both deep anger and remarkable self-control, and they walk onwards to their destination in silence, both of them trying so hard to keep their emotions in check.

 

* * *

Sometimes at night she swears she can  _feel_  in him in her flat, right when she wakes up, as if his presence in one of her dreams has brought him back here in real life, bringing him back home.

But when she opens her eyes, the room is always empty, just her and Toby alone in the dead of the night.

* * *

 

The days and the weeks and the months roll on, like rocks on the edge of the hill, slow at first then picking up speed, crashing onwards through time.

Mrs. Hudson finally manages to rent out the basement suite, after months of renovations plagued by delays (several of her contractors quit immediately and without warning after Sherlock's 'demise', leaving her in the lurch). The older woman finally works things out with a butcher down the road, and takes a long trip in Florida that does not end in a homicide case involving her travel companion. 221B stays the same as always, the rent continued to be paid by Mycroft, who seems to find solace in the continuation of some small part of his brother, even if it is only through his books and furniture and half-finished experiments. John still can't bear to return to the flat, eventually relocating to a lovely flat in Muswell Hill with his new fiancé, a beautiful young lawyer named Mary Morstan.

Molly feels left behind by it all, as if time is moving everyone forward but her, leaving only Molly Hooper stuck in its wake. Nothing in her life changes, really. She gets up, goes to work, eats her meals, goes home, goes to bed. She takes little holidays to Majorca and Rhodes and Nantes, and comes back home pretty much exactly the same as when she left. She meets some men, goes on dates, but she can never seem to make it work past two or three months, letting relationships passively fall to the side. Her mother seems to have given up hope for her daughter's potential matrimonial success, and slowly stops arranging dates and asking questions about Molly's romantic life.

Sometimes she wishes that he had actually died. Sometimes she thinks that it would be easier if she knew he was actually dead, a lifeless body buried in the ground or reduced to ashes. If she knew he was dead (like John and Mrs. Hudson and Lestrade confidently believe), perhaps then she would be able to move on, grieving and bargaining and coming to terms with all that had gone on. Instead, she lives every day with the smallest grain of hope that the next man around the corner, the next figure half hidden on the train is Sherlock Holmes, coming home once more.

The name Sebastian Moran haunts her still. She can still hear his voice in her flat that night so long ago, telling her it was all about Moran, the former Army colonel, Moriarty's right-hand man. Is Sherlock still looking for him? Did he find him and fail to succeed? Or is he still looking, lost at the far ends of the earth?

She is staring at an ad on the bus for Morocco when she thinks of this again, wondering if Sherlock had made it to the rolling dunes and crystal waters of the North African country. She smiles slightly to herself, imagining him there, alabaster skin reddening under the harsh sun-

Her reverie is broken as a man stumbles onto her, reeking of cheap whiskey and covered in filth. She wrinkles her nose as she slips past him, even as he mumbles a barely comprehensible apology. She hits the buzzer for the next stop and moves to the door, pulling her jacket closer around her as she prepares to head out into the chilly London night.

The bus pulls up to the stop and she steps out, moving quickly down the road towards her flat two streets away. She doesn't like this walk at night, especially on a Friday, when drunken youngsters and bored teenagers make their way up and down the pavement in the late hours of the evening.

She makes it around the first corner when her foot catches on the edge of the kerb and she stumbles, pushing out her hands to arrest her fall. Her knee slams against the ground and she cries out in pain, collapsing.

A hand grasps onto her back, and she looks up to see the drunk from the bus looking down at her, swaying on the spot as he reaches his other hand down to her. "Ne-need some 'elp, miss?" he slurs , and she reluctantly takes the offered hand to bring herself upright again.

The instant she is on her feet again she lets his hand go, pulling her purse strap higher onto her shoulder and taking a slight step back. "Th-thank you," she says softly, before turning to leave, her heart beating furiously in her chest.

"Need to be more careful, miss," he mutters, waggling a finger at her, taking a step closer to her.

"I will," she answers, before backing up another step. She can feel the wall of the building behind her approach her back, only a couple steps behind her. Her pulse quickens, and she fights to suppress her instinct to panic.

He takes another step towards her, and she steps back again, and suddenly the wall is at her back, and her breath catches at her throat, and she doesn't know what to do. The drunk leans forward towards her and presses his hands down on either side of her, and she means to scream, but her vocal chords won't work, nothing works.

"Please, no," she manages to croak out, and she can feel his breath on her throat, so close now.

"You need to be more careful," she hears in her ear, and suddenly the slur is gone, replaced by a crisp and cool voice that is hauntingly familiar.

"Wh-what?" she stutters, her heart leaping into her throat at the feeling of recognition that builds inside of her.

"You are being watched, Molly," he whispers into her ear, and she  _knows_ that voice, would know it anywhere.

"Sherlock?" she breathes, turning her head slightly and meeting a very familiar pair of clear, blue eyes.


	11. A Reunion

He first caught sight of her two days earlier, as she crossed the road in front of St. Bart's on her way to the cafe down the street. He'd been waiting for her there, having come back from Santiago on a flight via Heathrow that morning. He'd already confirmed the safety of the other illustrious few that he considers to be of his 'inner circle' (now including, it appeared, a balding butcher on the arm of a certain landlady as well as a rather tall redhead living with his apparently-former-roommate). He'd like to pretend that he didn't know why he'd saved her for last, why he'd decided to check on her after everyone else, but deep in his heart of hearts, he knew.

Sentiment.

And that was how he'd come to follow her that first day, dressed inconspicuously in a pair of track suit bottoms and a well-worn jumper. He hadn't meant to follow her all day; in fact, some alarming and infuriating part of his brain continued to urge him to simply join her in the cafe and continue a certain kiss that has been interrupted by his own carelessness and misjudgment. This turn towards sentimentality baffled him at first, but three years living in hovels and chasing ghosts and living in a world that didn't know his real name had changed him.

For some strange and bewildering reason, this change didn't seem to bother him all that much.

Molly had snuck into his mind palace in the time he'd been away. Somehow, when his mental back had been turned and his mental self embroiled in the never ending enigma that was Moriarty (and, by proxy, his henchman Moran), she'd managed to scale the walls of his mind palace and infiltrate the very core of his being, slowly and quietly taking over room after room until the entire palace was hers, conquered from within. In Dublin, he passed a young woman with mousy brown hair and his traitorous heart had thumped twice as fast in her wake. In a poorly lit mortuary somewhere in the heart of Soweto, his sentimental memory had brought back visions of the clean halls and harsh light of St Bart's, where a timid and awkward young woman always turned to smile at him. And at night, whether in a hotel in Dubai or a leaky hostel in Shanghai, his dreams seemed to always drift back to that moment in her flat, that moment where he'd pulled her close and kissed her hard, wanting nothing more in that instant than to devour her whole.

It was this he was thinking of when he noticed the CCTV camera move.

It wasn't much, a subtle movement in a crowded street, but when it happened again at the corner of the road, swinging its electronic eye onto the young pathologist as she made her way down the street, he knew there was something dangerous afoot.

Two options, he calculated quickly. First: Mycroft. His brother did have a habit of keeping tabs on all known 'accomplices' of Sherlock, and it would not surprise Sherlock in the least if his brother was still maintaining his files on John, Mrs Hudson, Lestrade, and Molly. However, the likelihood of Mycroft keeping constant eyes on the pathologist seemed somewhat like overkill, especially for a target as dull and predictable as Molly Hooper.

That left the second option: Moran.

He'd managed to find a concrete lead on Moran eight weeks ago, in a shanty town south of Mumbai. The old widow he'd spoken too had told him of two dead bodies that had turned up along the riverbanks. When he'd gone to examine the still somewhat recognizable corpses, he'd  
been able to identify them as the two men he'd been tracking under suspicion of being in Moran's employ. From there, he'd followed the trail left by the men's fingerprints back to false names and missed flights to Lima, so he'd purchased a Spanish phrase book and hopped on the next flight to Peru. From Peru the trail had brought him to Santiago, and now, to London.

As he began to understand the implications of the situation, his pulse quickened and his hands clenched into fists. Moran had led him here, back to where it had all began. Back to the one place on earth that Sherlock had any emotional attachment too. Back to the one place where he could truly be hurt.

So he'd backed away from the cafe where Molly had entered and ordered and a coffee with two creams and one sugar, and made a tactical retreat to come up with a better plan.

* * *

"Sherlock?"

The very sound of her voice breathing his name makes his stomach drop, a tingling sensation running through the very bottom of his gut. Her eyes as she recognizes him through his disguise makes his pulse race, but he pushes those pesky and dangerous physical reactions to the side as he leans in close to her ear.

"Not here," he tells her softly, before slipping a note into the pocket of her jacket. "Now knee me in the groin and run to your flat."

She freezes for a moment, clearly overwhelmed, but recovers quickly and does what he asks.

As he lies on the ground cradling his midsection seconds later, he wonders if she really had to make it so believable...

* * *

"9:40pm tomorrow night. Go to empty your rubbish outside in the bin. When you return, an old man will ask you to step into flat 12. Follow him."

She's read and reread that note a dozen times now. After kneeing Sherlock in the groin (which, she sheepishly admits, felt somewhat good after three years of worry and concern), she'd sprinted the last block back to her flat, her mind reeling at the recent revelations.  _Sherlock was alive_ , was all she could think of. Underneath all that grime and those clothes and that  _smell_ , it had been him. Those blue eyes, that deep voice - and suddenly it was like the three years hadn't ever happened at all; suddenly it was like she was standing in that hall again in Brighton, swaying with him to the music around them, her eyes locked with his as if they were the only two people in the whole world.

She spends the whole of the next day in a daze, going through the motions while her brain runs over and over again the information that he'd told her.  _You are being watched_ , he'd whispered in her ear. But watched by whom? Moriarty had put a bullet through the back of his own mouth and had been reduced to ashes placed in an unmarked urn somewhere in London. She knows that for a fact - she had been there that day when they'd placed his cardboard coffin into the flames. However, she admits to herself, it would be highly unlikely that he'd worked by himself - though he had been a devious and insidious criminal mastermind, he still couldn't have worked alone.

Hence Moran. Moran must be the one watching her, the American colonel that Sherlock had mentioned so long ago. But why? Did he know, somehow, that she had helped in orchestrating Sherlock's false death? And if he knew, who else knew? The thought makes her shiver, even as she drinks down the last dregs of her still-warm coffee.

That evening she heads straight home, turning down a request from the nurse she's recently befriended to join her for a post-shift drink. She gives Toby his food and serves herself a re-warmed bowl of pasta bolognese, and settles down on the sofa to watch soap operas and trashy reality programmes until 9:40pm rolls around. Her heartbeat grows faster with each ticking movement of the clock, and by the time she grabs the bags of rubbish to bring down to the main bin her hands are nearly shaking with anticipation.

Slamming the lid shut on the bin, she heads back inside her building, passing the ground floor flats before coming up to the stairs. She's about to head up when she hears a voice call out behind her.

"Miss? Miss Hooper? Would you mind giving me a hand?" asks an elderly man with a bushy white beard, leaning out from the door labelled number 12. "My lightbulb's gone out, would you mind giving me a hand like before?"

She's never seen this man in her life, but she nods and puts a smile on her face. "Of course," she tells him, following him in through the door.

He shuts it behind her, and for a brief moment, she tenses up - what if this was all part of an elaborate trick? But then the man latches the door behind her and turns to face her, removing his eyeglasses and tearing off his beard.

She doesn't quite know what to say.

But, thankfully, this is Sherlock, and he always has something to say.

"There's a man after you, Molly," he starts, making sure that the blinds are drawn and the windows are latched. "Sebastian Moran."

"I remember," she croaks out, and then recovers. "I remember you telling me about him."

He looks back at her, nods, and returns to his de facto security inspection. "Yes. Moriarty's right-hand man. I've been tracking him across the globe, and it's brought me right back here."

He continues talking, too fast for her to follow, but it seems like the man he's been chasing has eluded him for a long, long time only to somehow drag him back to England. She also notices that he doesn't seem to want to look at her, keeping his eyes on the blinds and and the locked door.

"...I've checked on John and his new fiance, have you met her, monstrously tall redhead, but next to John who wouldn't be-"

His voice is cut off, however, by her hand grasping onto his arm. He looks down at her, surprised.

"I'm-I'm glad you're back," she tells him softly, looking up to meet his eyes. There's something strange there, something she hasn't seen there before.

"I-," he stars, but falters. He pulls away from her touch but continues to stare at her, as if weighing something in his mind.

"Sherlock?" she breathes, uncertain now. Had she misread everything?

But then he moves forward suddenly, almost too quickly for her eyes to follow, and she can feel him press her backward, one of his hands coming around her back as they hit the wall behind them, his free hand coming up to cradle the back of her head as he brings his lips to hers and crashes them against hers.


	12. A Body in the Morgue

**Hello all! This chapter earns the T rating, in my opinion. Sorry again for the wait; between my field work and my thesis and general life, it's been a busy month. Hope you all enjoy. :)**

* * *

He's not sure what primal and base instinct makes him lunge forward and wrap his hand around the back of Molly's head, but that same instinct continues to spur him on as he kisses her hard, pushing them both back against the wall. His hand on the back of her head protects her as they hit the solid surface, though he can still feel her surprise as her hands come up to his arms instinctively, keeping her upright.

He's never felt like this before. Wait – he had felt something like this in Brighton, some type of  _feeling_  coiled in the pit of his stomach, but this feeling is exponentially stronger than that. There's this hunger that drives him forward now, as his tongue slips past her lips and opens their kiss.

Her hands leave his arms and come up into his hair, and he groans into her mouth at the feel on her fingers on his scalp. She gently pulls and pushes and even scratches against his skin, and that only makes him kiss her harder, faster.

He moves his hand down from the back of her head and down to her waist, while he brings the other one up to cup her cheek. He's trying hard to process everything, to sort and decipher and analyze, but all he can think about is how soft her lips are, how warm her skin is, and how fast his heart is beating. It's hard, so hard to think now, so for once in his (sober) life he stops  _thinking_  and lets himself go.

He lets his lips drop from her mouth and down onto the side of her neck, and is instantly rewarded by the tightening of her grip on his hair and by a sigh escaping her kiss-swollen lips. He can taste the salt on her skin from riding on the crowded Tube, and it makes him want more. Almost without thought, his hand rubs against her abdomen through her coat, and then his fingers are guiding the rest of his hand, slipping under the fabric to caress the skin underneath. Her stomach tightens against his touch, and then relaxes, though he can still feel the bumps along her skin caused by his movements.

One of her hands come down from his head onto his side and pulls him closer to her, her hand splayed open on his rib cage, urging him onwards. He is more than happy to oblige, bringing his lips back up to her mouth as his hand dips lower, brushing against the waistband of her trousers. She wraps her leg up along the back of his thigh, and the movement is like a lightning bolt through him, causing him to push his leg up between her thighs, effectively pinning her to wall. His hand moves upwards of its own accord, his palm weighing her right breast in his hand, and his brain can barely keep up to his body.

"Sherlock," she breathes into his mouth, and the sound of her voice suddenly grounds him again.

_Moran. Danger. Not safe._

The words, unwanted, come to forefront of his mind. As much as he wants to continue, to finally bring all the feelings and thoughts he's had these last long three years to fruition, he can't. Not now. Not like this.

He pulls away reluctantly, and looks down at the woman in front of him, her face flushed, hair dishevelled, breathing hard as her eyes meet his.

"Your pupils are dilated," he says softly, absently, and he's surprised by how out of breath he himself sounds.

She doesn't say anything, just stares up at him, eyes wide.

He steps back, and drops his hand down by his sides. "We- we aren't safe here," he says, his words stumbling, and he feels so strange, so unlike himself. "You have to go now, Molly," he tells her, though every atom in his body is crying out to tell her to  _stay_ , to take her into his arms and to never let her go.

"Al-alright," she replies softly, pulling her shirt back down and readjusting her jacket. Her eyes flick away from his, and she makes her way to the door, uncertainty and confusion apparent in her every step.

She's about to open the door fully, to step out into the corridor and out of his sight, but before she can he's beside her again, his palm pressed firmly against the wood, keeping it closed.

"I will meet you tomorrow. Knightsbridge. Near Harrods, on Brompton Road. 4 o'clock," he tells her, whispering into her ear. He can feel her shiver at the sound of his voice, and he's fighting everything inside of him telling him to throw caution to the wind and to  _just keep kissing her_.

And then he draws his hand back and lets her leave, his hands balled up into fists and his heart still beating furiously inside his chest.

* * *

Molly can't fall asleep.

She barely remembers coming back to her flat, barely remembers navigating the stairs up to her door, still in a daze. When she'd finally made it inside her home, she'd only been capable of leaning against the door, her fingers pressed to her lips, her eyes closed, trying to catalogue every moment, every sensation, in case it never happened again.

She'd stripped off her work clothes and put on her nightgown, and she'd crawled into bed, still feeling the ghost of his hand against the skin of her stomach, trailing down towards the edge of her hips. Even now, lying between the sheets, her eyes open and locked on the ceiling above her, all she can do is relive what happened between them through her mind's eye, over and over, like a song stuck on repeat.

She can  _feel_  his lips on her lips. She can  _feel_  his hand in her hair, his fingers on her skin, his breath on her cheek. She physically aches with the need to have him beside her again, a feeling nothing like anything she's ever felt before.

So she lies there in her bed, awake and alone, impatiently waiting for the morning to come.

* * *

The next day passes like the longest day on the Earth. She can't seem to concentrate on anything, constantly looking up at the clock to determine how much time has gone by. She can barely muddle through her paperwork, missing lines and forgetting words and absently reading and re-reading the same paragraph over and over again.

Some respite comes with the arrival of Lestrade just before noon, walking into the lab with one of his officers right behind him. She almost asks where Sherlock is before catching herself, remembering only in the nick of time that the rest of the world still thinks him to be dead.  _Maybe not after today_ , she thinks to herself, and she hides a hopeful smile behind her hand.

" 'Morning, Molly," says the inspector as he enters the lab, running a hand through his hair, his eyes tired and his face worn. His companion looks just as tired, her mouth drawn into a firm line, looking solemn.

"Hello, Greg," she responds, putting away her file. "What can I help you with?"

He brings a file up from under his arm and places it on the counter in front of her. "I'm looking for a body, brought in either late last night or early this morning. Male, mid-thirties, about six feet. Apparent suicide, found in a flat off of the Streatham high street."

Molly nods in recognition of the details. "Yes, I have him on my list for today. Come over this way," she tells them, indicating for them to follow her.

She pulls out the body and unzips the bag for them, stepping back to allow the two officers to have a better look. "No identification on the body, COD was a reportedly self-inflicted gun shot wound to the head."

Lestrade looks back at her. "Reportedly?"

She gestures to the entrance wound on the right side of the man's face. "The angle is slightly off," she tells him, pointing down at the wound. "As if his arm was being held in that position," she finishes.

The inspector's mouth sets into a hard line. "Donovan?" he asks, addressing his companion.

"It certainly looks like him," she responds. "Same build, same facial features. Hair colour is different than the one we have on file, but otherwise it's him."

Lestrade sighs and nods. "Yeah, that's what I thought too. Get Anderson on the phone, I want him to go over the notes the responding officer took last night, and then get me the name of someone in the Home Office that I can transfer this over to, they'll need their counter-terrorism people on this."

Molly, despite herself, found her curiosity piqued. "Counter-terrorism?" she asked.

The inspector turned to face her. "We've been looking for this guy for a while," he tells her, gesturing back to the body behind him. "His current alias was 'John Gaffney', real name Sebastian Moran. Former-"

"Seb-Sebastian Moran?" she repeats incredulously, cutting him off in the process.

He wrinkles his brow at her in confusion and half-masked suspicion. "Yes," he answers, "how did you-?"

"Oh, uh," she stammers, looking down at her feet. "It sounds a lot like a name Sherlock mentioned, a long, long time ago."

Lestrade's expression softens then. "Yeah, he might've done. Looks like Moran might have been mixed up with that whole Moriarty/Richard Brook affair. If only we'd known then what we know now..." he finished softly, pain becoming apparent in his eyes. Molly knew that the inspector no longer believed that Sherlock had been a fraud, but in his mind the consulting detective was long dead and gone, and the guilt of his actions still weighed heavily on him.

She reaches out her hand and touches his arm lightly. "There's nothing you could have done," she tells him softly, and she means it.

He smiles sadly at her. "Yeah, well..." he says, trailing off.

Donovan clears her throat from the other side of the table, and Molly drops her hand away.

"Thanks again for your help, Molly," Lestrade tells her, nodding his appreciation as he turns to leave.

"You're welcome," she tells him, watching them both leave the room, her heart pounding furiously in her chest, as she brings her eyes back down to stare at the prone and very much deceased form of Colonel Sebastian Moran.

* * *

She barely makes it to three o'clock. With the knowledge that Sebastian Moran - the man Sherlock had been hunting for nearly three years - was lying dead in her morgue, she knew that Sherlock could now  _finally_  come back to the land of the living. This thought alone spurs her on through the day, all pretense at working thrown aside as she openly stares at the clock, counting down the hours and the minutes and the seconds until she can see Sherlock again and inform him that his enemy, the  _last_  enemy, was finally dead and gone.

 _And then he can come home,_ she thinks to herself, selfishly.  _He can come back and he can work again and he can maybe_... She doesn't even let herself think that last thought, but thoughts and images of kissing him in the dark come rushing back into her mind. She thinks it lucky that there was no one else in the morgue present to see her blush so red.

At three o'clock she's out the door, bag on her shoulder, her stride quick and purposeful. She decides to walk there, her body coursing with excitement, energy in each and every of her steps. She spends the entire walk there thinking about what exactly she will tell him, and what life will be like with Sherlock Holmes back in the world.

She makes her way down Brompton Road, snaking in and out of the crowds, striding past the slow walking tourists and the languid afternoon walkers. Her eyes are searching the area around the Tube station outside Harrod's, scanning faces and back and general physiques, trying to find him. She checks her watch and sees that she's fifteen minutes early, so she wills herself to  _calm down_  and steps back to wait against the side of the building, watching the people go by.

A tap on her shoulder makes her jump, her heart sent racing by the contact, and she turns to look back at him, her features scrunched up in mild embarrassment. "You startled me-" she starts to say, her lips curling up into a smile, as her eyes meet the figure behind her.

And then her heart stops.

"Surprise!" he calls out, his hand now grasped firmly on her elbow, as she stares openly in shock at the face of James Moriarty.


	13. A Doctor and A Detective

Dr. John Watson is, for the first time in his life, blissfully happy.

These days, he rises in the morning with a smile on his face and warmth in his heart, looking over at his still sleeping fiancé. He still can't believe his luck every time he looks at her – porcelain skin, long red hair, a wide and beautiful smile. More importantly, she is everything he'd hoped for yet feared he'd never find: she is kind and intelligent, funny, and grounded –a woman he'd thought could only exist in his dreams. When he'd first met her at a local production of  _Les Misérables_ , his confidence had been bolstered by the two whiskeys in his belly and the knowledge that he'd pretty much already lost everything he'd ever had to lose. After she'd said yes to a first date, then a second, and then a third, he knew that he was a lost cause: he was falling dreadfully, uncontrollably, deeply in love with Mary Morstan.

"You're staring at me," she murmurs, eyes still closed, but a smile starting to pull at the edges of her lips.

He blushes. "You're supposed to be sleeping," he admonishes her.

She opens her eyes fully and turns over to meet his gaze. "It's a little difficult to do when someone is staring at the back of your head," she tells him, playfully slapping his shoulder.

He catches her hand by the wrist and kisses it softly. "You going to the office today?" he asks her, tickling the inside of her palm.

She squirms a little and steals her hand back from him, grinning. "Yes," she answers, stretching out the kinks in her neck. "I've been assigned to a new case; something to do with corporate tax evasion involving some builders and a City contract? I'm not quite up on the specifics; I barely got a chance to skim the email before I fell asleep last night."

"Sounds riveting," he replies, pretending to yawn.

She smacks him with her pillow, and makes to get out of the bed. "We can't all be fancy GPs like yourself, Dr. Watson. Enjoy looking down people's throats and having children cough in your face."

He smiles at her. "See you tonight, yeah?"

"Absolutely," she replies, before disappearing into hallway beyond.

* * *

He spends his days now working as a physician at the local health clinic, where he really does pass most of his time enduring the symptoms of colds and flus and all manner of general human illnesses. He doesn't mind it though – the constant work helps him concentrate on his duties and not on other things in his life. Every once in a while, however, during the rare lull between patients or while on one of his infrequent coffee breaks, he'll catch himself dreaming about the days and nights he'd spent running and ducking and fighting on the streets of London, trying his best to keep up to a certain consulting detective in a very recognizable long, dark coat.

It's taken him a long, long time to get over the death of his friend. Well, "get over" is the simplest but innately inaccurate way of describing his 'healing' over the last three years – he can never, ever get over it. No one who ever loses someone that they love simply "gets over it". He's just gotten better, that's all, to a point now where he can live his life comfortably, contentedly, without the ghost of Sherlock Holmes weighing him down.

Sometimes though, when he hears sirens off in the distance, or sees a police officer run down the road, or a headline in the paper about a "mystery" or a "heist", he can't help but wish his friend was still here, still beside him, grinning that maverick and calculating grin, as he grabs his coat and sweeps out into the London night.

He doesn't really see anyone from those days anymore. Not Lestrade, who to the best of his knowledge is still with the Yard, still working hard to catch criminals and maintain justice, and all that righteous law-abiding stuff. Not Mrs. Hudson either, though he's nearly positive she's still living somewhere in the vicinity of Baker Street, possibly still involved with a baker or a butcher or someone of that type. He doesn't see Molly Hooper anymore either, though she was the one he'd kept in contact with the most (as much as he kept in touch with anyone). There was something, something between them that made him more likely to connect with her. In both their own ways, Sherlock Holmes had been the focal point of their lives. For him, it had been an escape from the PTSD and the phantom injury and the life of man irrevocably changed by war. For her, it had been adventure and intrigue and the faintest possibility of love in a life spent in dark basements, surrounded by the bodies of those dead and gone. As time wore on, however, he'd eventually lost touch with her as well, both of them drifting away into the monotony of daily life, both of them soldiering on.

* * *

That day, on his way home from work, he spots several headlines reporting on the finding of the body of an international terrorist wanted by Interpol. He can't help but wonder what it would be like to have helped solve that crime, to be involved in that kind of life again.

* * *

Most evenings, he gets home long before Mary does. Tonight is no different, and when he checks his mobile, he sees that there's a text waiting from her.

_Sorry meetings are running long. Will be late. xx Mary._

"Take-away it is," he mutters to himself, calling up the local Chinese for his favorite order. A night of trash telly and greasy food? It would be like being a bachelor all over again, he thinks to himself with a smile.

He's still sitting and watching Jeremy Kyle, empty containers of chow mein discarded at his side, when he thinks he hears the door to the flat close, and he calls out to the kitchen beyond. "Mary?"

No response.

Brow furrowed, he mutes the television, and calls out again. "Mary, is that you?"

Silence.

Suspicious now, he rises from the sofa, his body tense and coiled. He turns the corner into the kitchen, hands balled into fists at his side, and peers into the dimly lit space before him. "Is someone th-" he starts to ask, and then stops abruptly.

He forgets to breathe.

"Hello, John," Sherlock Holmes says to him, and the next few moments are all a blur. John is vaguely aware of moving forward and punching Sherlock in the jaw, while the former detective tries in vain to pull the doctor's hands away from him. All John knows is that he is angry, and he is hurt, and he  _needs_  to rid himself of all this pain he's kept inside himself during these long three years.

"I- saw – you – die," he snarls at his former friend, in between poorly aimed strikes and frantic punches.

The detective's finally caught the doctor's hands by the wrist, and is slowly succeeding in pushing the smaller man back off of him. "You saw me jump," he clarified. "You did not witness the impact. I assured that."

John yanks his hands away and pushes himself back across to the other side of the room, seething. "Three years as a dead man and the first thing you do is correct me?!" he scoffs, incredulous.

Sherlock considers this a moment. "Would you expect anything less?"

John just stares at him, jaw clenched and eyes blazing, until he slowly and softly stares to chuckle. "Of course, of course not..." he manages to say between laughs, and then he's laughing maniacally, and he's sliding to the floor, laughing uncontrollably.

Sherlock is over to him in an instant, kneeling at his friend's side. "You are in shock, John. Breathe deeply. Concentrate on your breathing."

The doctor is shaking his head, still caught in his disbelief. "There was a body. In the morgue. Molly – Molly showed it to me, I saw it... and then the funeral! We buried you, I swear we did Sherlock, I swear..."

A silence falls over the two men, as John tries to get himself back under control. "I am sorry for the deception, John. It was... necessary," Sherlock says softly.

"Necessary? For god's sake, Sherlock, don't you think it was  _necessary_  to tell me? Don't you think it would have been easier to just ask for my help for once? But no, no instead you let me think you jumped from that roof to your death, and you left me alone in that flat, with no one and no answers and I-" his voice cuts off sharply, as the doctor shakes his head, his jawline set firm.

"It's not that simple, John," starts the detective.

"No?" interrupts the other man, turning now to face his former roommate. "Then explain it to me, Sherlock. Explain to me why you felt the need to fool the entire world into thinking you were dead."

And so Sherlock explains everything. About Moriarty, and about the snipers, and about the plan he'd orchestrated with Molly. About the clues he'd followed around the world, about the time spent in all the hovels and shantytowns and ghettos of the world. John can barely believe it, can barely comprehend the intricacy of everything (how had he missed all this? how had he been so easily fooled by it all?).

John rubs his hands over his face, over his eyes. He shakes his head, still so flustered by this all, still so off balance by this sudden and unexpected turn of events. "So, let me get this straight: you've been roaming the world for the past three years hunting down Moriarty's right hand man?"

Sherlock nods. "Yes."

"And you somehow managed, in the span of the four hours between the last time I saw you face-to-face and the time that you jumped from the roof, to arrange to fake your suicide?"

The detective nods again. "That is correct."

"And Molly – Molly Hooper – knew all of this, all along?"

"She did, yes. I stayed with her for a number of weeks after the incident, hiding out in her home, planning my next move," Sherlock confirmed.

"And that man – that man I saw in the paper today – that was the man you'd been searching for? Did  _you_  kill him?" John asks pointedly, his eyes narrowing.

Sherlock takes a deep breath then, and something strange passes through the detective's eyes, some emotion that John doesn't quite recognize in his friend's eyes. "No, I did not. Someone else did."

John furrows his brow again, confused for the umpteenth time. "Wait, so, the international terrorist you've been zealously hunting for the past three years just serendipitously ends up dead in the streets of London? That doesn't seem quite right."

"I agree. Moran was extremely talented at evading his enemies. He was the defacto head of a very powerful and very secretive organization. He is –  _was_  – intelligent, cunning, and devious. For him to wind up dead on a road in Streatham is almost... unfathomable."

John sighs, and places his head in his hands. "Sherlock, I don't follow – who else would have done this? And what does it matter now, if he's dead."

Silence follows, and John looks up from his hands to see Sherlock staring at him, his eyes narrowed and almost... angry.

"There is something else you need to know, John. Yesterday evening, Molly Hooper went missing. I have reason to believe the same person who killed Sebastian Moran also captured Molly."

John can't quite believe that. Molly? Molly Hooper? The quiet, unassuming, mousy little pathologist? "Why would anyone want to kidnap Molly?"

Sherlock sighs then, and directs his eyes away from John. "Because... because of me."

It takes John a moment to process this information, and then suddenly, it's like a light switch being turned on in his head, as it all comes together. "You mean – you... and Molly?" he asks incredulously.

Sherlock doesn't answer, and that tells John everything.

"But... if someone knows about you, and knows about Molly... that would mean it would have to be someone that you knew before you...  _fell_. Someone who knows a damn lot about you, Sherlock. Someone like..."

"Moriarty," Sherlock growls, his eyes dark and angry. "Somehow, he survived. He survived and he is here and he took Molly. He'll take everything from me John, he's tried before, and I can't-" John is surprised to see the emotion on the detective's face, to hear the tension in his voice.

He reaches out then, and places his hand on his friend's arm. "Well then," he says softly, looking into his friend's eyes. "We'd better get to work, shouldn't we?"


	14. A Demon in a Man's Skin

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TRIGGER WARNINGS FOR THIS CHAPTER: kidnapping, slight psychological torture.

_She's standing in a room, warm and cozy and bright with sunlight._

_The room itself is immaculate. All the furniture, all the decor – arranged perfectly, artistically. The windows are elegant and wide, letting in the glorious daylight, and she's struck momentarily by the sharp contrast of this place to her own flat, where the small, poorly-designed windows let in only the noise of traffic from the high street and the constant sound of English rain._

_She feels... strange. Different. Something is different here._

_She strides across the room and spots a photograph on the table, a photograph of a smiling little boy with dark curls and eyes that look oh-so-familiar. She feels like she should know him, like she_ does _know him, but she can't put a name to a face. A heavy feeling starts to settle in her stomach, a feeling of unease, but before she can figure it out, a pair of arms wrap around her from behind, holding her tight._

_"Good morning," rumbles a deep voice into the skin between her neck and shoulder, and she instantly recognizes the voice of Sherlock Holmes._

_She turns to him and smiles, ignoring the strangeness for a brief moment. " 'Morning," she replies softly, and starts to ask him what's wrong here, where are they, and why does this all feel so alien, so strange?_

_She doesn't get a chance though, because he's pressing his lips to hers, hard and fast, and on instinct she starts to kiss him back, though the pleasure of their embrace is tempered by the growing feeling of dread in her body, spreading out from her core out to her limbs._

_He breaks the kiss to press his lips against her neck, and she gasps with delight, despite herself. "Sher-Sherlock, there's something wrong here, something's not right..."_

_"What's not right?" he asks in return, but his voice sounds different, changed somehow, and when she pulls his chin back up towards her she can't help but scream, because it's not Sherlock anymore, it's Jim, it's Moriarty, and she can't get away from him, his arms locked around her body, his face grinning into hers, his eyes gleaming maliciously as he -_

And that's when she wakes up.

Her throat feels raw, like she's been screaming (maybe in her sleep?), and there's pain coursing throughout her body, from the top of her skull all the way down into her toes. She brings her arm up and touches the side of her right temple, feeling flakes of dried blood being rubbed off by the touch of her fingers. She winces as she tries to straighten her left leg, and suddenly it's all coming back to her now, the meeting on Brompton Road, when she'd turned and seen Moriarty in front of her, grinning that maniacal grin, laughing at her shock and at her fear. He'd stepped closer to her then, and pressed something onto her lips, and before she knew it she was falling, falling away, away into the blackness and the terror beyond.

She pushes herself up gingerly and takes stock of her surroundings. Her eyes adjust to the dim light, and her heart thumps nervously in her chest as her eyes dart around the room, unable to concentrate on one thing.  _Breathe_ , she tells herself, and she tries again, starting first with the room itself. Dim, small – the far wall is perhaps only ten feet away from her. Other than the cot she is currently occupying, there is only a worn chair in the corner opposite from the door. The door itself is sturdy, she knows; she can tell that from just a quick glance from her vantage point. She recognizes a cell when she sees one. (Not to mention, she'd definitely noticed the camera in the far right corner when she'd first sat upright).

She pulls herself all the way upright and swings her legs over the edge of the cot, letting her legs hang but not making any move to stand. "He-hello?" she calls out tentatively, wondering if there was someone out there watching her. She stares at the camera, but it does not move.

A crackling sound suddenly fills the air, and an intercom system comes to life, her blood chilling at the sound of his voice in the air. "Molly!" he exclaims, and she swears she can  _feel_ his smile in the air. "Just a moment, love, I'll be right down!" The system switches off as quickly as it had come on, and the air around her goes quiet again.

She forgets to breathe for a moment, and when she finally remembers the need for air as her body screams out for oxygen, she gasps and clutches at her chest, feeling panicked and scared.  _Keep calm, Molly_ , she tells herself sternly, although this part of her brain doesn't quite sound like her. It sounds more masculine, more... certain somehow.  _Do not let him see your panic, do not let him see your fear_ , says the voice in her head, and she realizes with a start that the voice is Sherlock's, reverberating through her head. Of course the inner manifestation of her analytical and confident self is narrated by Sherlock Holmes. She grins to herself madly at that thought, but then quickly returns to her face to a neutral expression when she hears a key start to turn in the door.

She hopes that he can't hear her heartbeat, thumping a hard rhythm throughout her entire body.

The lock clicks open, the door swinging in towards her, and she watches with barely managed panic as a monster walks through.

He is dressed in a sharp black suit, nicely pressed and complemented by a thin blood red tie (how fitting, she remarks to herself, but then the Sherlock-voice in her head tells her to _keep calm_ ). His hair, still as black as it was that day she met him in the hospital, is cut short and neat, and his face is still as clean-shaven as ever. He could easily pass for any of the young professional men she sees daily on the Tube, all dressed the same, streaming in from the ends of the lines into the heart of London itself. He enters the room and stands about five feet from her, his hands placed casually into his pockets, his shoulders slightly hunched, as if to convey an air of casualness between them.

He stares at her for a long moment and she fights  _hard_  not to squirm under his gaze. "Molly, Molly," he starts softly, his eyes still locked on her. "How long has it been?"

She doesn't answer, too afraid that her voice will break and show her weakness, and he simply smiles at her, his eyes dark.

"Nearly four years, isn't it? I'm so sorry about that date we had lined up at the pub; something came up at work and things got a little... explosive," he finishes, winking at her. She digs her fingers into the side of her thigh, trying her best not to shudder.

"Anyway," he continues, gesturing dismissively with a wave of his hand, "I do feel terrible about leaving you hanging, Molly; I was  _so_ enjoying getting to know you better. I really did think that we had something, you know. The way it felt when I kissed you," he purred, closing his eyes as if in blissful memory, and she  _does_  shudder this time, though thankfully he can't see her with his eyelids shut. "Ah, Molly, you were so  _eager_ , so  _hungry_  for affection, it was a wonderful experience, really gratifying to me on a personal level. A real confidence booster, you know?"

Her skin crawls as the memory of his hands on her waist, his mouth on hers comes back to her, unbidden and unwanted. She fights to forget how it felt when he kissed her, and tears threaten at the edges of her eyes as she berates herself for ever being drawn in by him, by this scum of humanity, this demon of a creature.

His eyes snap open suddenly, and despite herself, she gasps. "But you didn't wait for me, did you Molly? No, no you gave up on me, you gave up on  _us_ ," he stresses, moving from foot to foot now, swaying in the center of the room.

"There was never any  _us_ ," she squeaks out despite herself, her voice much shakier and much less confident than she'd hoped it would be.

He raises an eyebrow at her. "No? What about all those entries you put on your blog, Molly?  _Dear diary,"_  he starts, his voice high-pitched and sickly sweet, " _today Jim asked me out for another date. I think he really likes me! We are going to lovely restaurant on Friday, I think I'll go and get a new dress for the occasion_   _and –"_

"Stop!" she cries out despite herself, and immediately claps her hands over her mouth, horrified and angry with herself for having given in to his cruel taunts.

His eyes gleam at her, full of sadistic pleasure at her discomfort. "Did you buy a new dress for Sherlock, Molly?" he asks her, his voice quiet, deadly quiet.

Her heart skips two beats. "I – I don't know what you're talking about," she whispers, frightened now.

He claps his hands together in horrifyingly enthusiastic glee. "Molly, Molly, Molly... Oh, you are so modest now, so private. But don't worry, Molly my love, I'll keep this little secret between us," he tells her, his voice low, as if they were two best friends conspiring together. "I won't tell anyone about you and the world's only 'consulting detective'," he finishes, bringing his finger up to the edge of his lips, as if sealing a secret between them.

Molly feels sick. "Sher-Shelock's dead," she tries weakly, but she knows better.

He throws his head back and lets out a bark of a laugh, his body shaking with his mirth. He laughs like this for several minutes, doubled over with his exertions, and when he looks back up at Molly she can see tears leaking down the sides of his cheeks, overcome with his own amusement.

"Nice try, Molly," he tells her, as he wipes the tear away from his cheeks. "I must commend you for your valiant effort, but really," he says, shaking his head, "did you really think you could fool me?"

She doesn't say anything, doesn't move.

Then he's in front of her, his hands clamped onto either side of her face, holding her still. " _DID YOU?"_  he exclaims, staring into her eyes, his gaze like looking into the eyes of a berserker, his fury and rage seething from every pore of his body. Her fear is paralyzing, all consuming, and the Sherlock-voice in the back of her mind is deafened by the panic coursing through her, freezing her to the spot.

And then suddenly, without warning, his hands drop away and he steps back, eerily calm again. His hands smooth down the edges of his suit, and Molly is gasping for air, her eyes clenched shut as she tries to find some sort of calmness within herself again.

"How did you do it?" she hears him ask, and she opens her eyes once more. He's studying the fingernails on his left hand, not even looking at her.

"Do what?" she mumbles, making herself look at him.

He looks up at her and grins. "Get that silly little detective to fall in love with you, of course!" he exclaims, all smiles again. "I really thought he might love that scruffy sidekick of his, what with the way he came to his defense, but... bravo, Molly, bravo," he finishes, slowly clapping his hands together.

Molly crinkles her brow, tries to look confused (though she is, really; Sherlock doesn't love her, couldn't love her... or does he?). "Sherlock barely knows I exist," she says softly, and it's true, really. "He only sees me when he needs something, otherwise I'm just – furniture, to him. Like a desk."

Moriarty guffaws at this. "Ha! Like a desk. I like that, Molly, I like that comparison. Too bad we both know it's not true. Well, not true  _now_ , at least. Maybe before, before he jumped off that roof, when you would scurry to get him his coffee and scurry back, always waiting – hoping – praying – that he would notice you  _this time_ , that maybe that extra bit of perfume or that new haircut would get him to look at you  _in that way_. But he never did, did he?"

"No," she whispers, shaking her head.

" _No_ ," he mocks her, copying her motion. "But then that changed, didn't it?" he continues, his tone mirthful. "It changed when you hid him in your flat, and the sparks flew and  _oh_  it was just  _perfect_ , a  _perfect_  little romance wasn't it, a story for the ages. I can see the bestsellers now: 'Homely Pathologist Woos Impossible Man of Her Dreams'."

Molly will not cry. She refuses to. She will not let him see her cry.

He moves closer to her now, his hands placed on either side of her knees, too close but not yet touching. Her skin crawls with his proximity to her, and she swallows down the bile that rises in her throat.

"How did it feel, Molly, when he kissed you?" he whispers into her ear, and she shivers as his breath tickles her earlobe. "How did it feel when he put his hands on you, when his fingers touched your skin, caressing you, rubbing you... how did it feel when he pressed himself against you, breathing hard and fast,  _wanting_  you like the way you wanted him."

Molly squeezes her eyes shut, her hands clutching at the sides of her face. "Please..." she begs him, not caring if that's what he wants, not caring is she is giving in. She only knows that she wants him to stop, to shut his mouth, to cease tormenting her like this.

She can feel him grinning at the side of her ear, silently triumphant.

"Well then," he says abruptly, pulling away and stepping over the door. "You must be tired from your trip here," he continues, gesturing to her current state. "Why don't you catch a little bit of sleep, Molly, and I'll be back in a little bit to check up on you," he tells her, winking.

"Ta-ta for now!" he exclaims with a flourish, disappearing out through the door. Molly stays frozen on her cot, caught somewhere between shock and horror and abject fear, trying to control the shaking that rocks her body, feeling desperately afraid and overwhelmingly alone.


End file.
